Farming the Web

Articles appeared on the web earlier this week describing Google's ongoing attempt to elevate the ratings of sites with "original" content and send to the Internet basement listings from so-called "content farms", which are owned by businesses that hire legions of part-time amateur writers to crank out articles for a few dollars apiece.

The operators of the content farms claim that their product provides an alternative perspective on the world because it is being produced by everyday people - usually stay-at-home housewives, rather than professional journalists who share similar backgrounds and have similar world views.

Google says that these articles are shallow, provide little value for the consumer and that the shear volume of the material causes it to clog up search engine results, which distracts web searchers and limits the value of Google as a tool for finding material from legitimate sources.

I believe the truth runs a little deeper.  The farm sites try to accumulate articles on subjects that provide hits on search engines and use these articles to link to advertisements.  In other words, they are basically advertising agencies and are competing against Google for the same pot of revenue.  Read---Google is trying to get rid of the competition, even if it also has a more altruistic model such as cleaning up the search process.

I happen to agree there is a problem with some farming sites, because they don't pay for material.  Rather they steal it from others then repost it as their own.  No, I haven't done my homework, so I can't list the sites that snatched my stuff, but it has been a problem since day one.  One popular thing to hijack is the address list on "Christie Contributors Outed".  Type in a search for a dentist, find one on the list and get a ton of ads for other dentists, not from Google, but from the pirate link.

On the other hand, the original stuff written by all those stay-at-home moms out there isn't always useless garbage.  In fact, I think a lot of it is insightful and better than my stuff.  After all, I am doing this for nothing, so how much time do you think I really put into cleaning up these articles.  My stuff gets its quality because a lot of what I write comes from personal experience and a lot of the research - such as the information I got on farm sites - has come from research I do anyway while on the clock.

Google says the written-by-housewife product is inferior because the writers put little effort into it.  (Sounds familiar, after all I am on Blogspot, Google's own content farm).  They say that since the women are trying to make a living at it, they can crank out seven or eight stories a day which means they put little effort into each one.

So I decided to put Google's claim to the test.  The biggest player in the farm business is an outfit called Demand Media.  They produce a variety of websites including http://www.cracked.com/ .  I went to Cracked to see how bad this trash was.  I was impressed.  A lot of the stuff on Cracked is well written.  In fact I would recommend it. The material is not bad, and the site provides a source of income for people interested in becoming freelance writers.

The bottom line.  Don't ever accept anything that authority figures say at face value without doing your own research.  You just might be surprised how often you come to a different conclusion than the so-called experts. 

Demonstration Tomorow

Friday Demonstration TomorowFebruary 25th 2011

In Front of State House

West State Street, Trenton, New Jersey

Starting 12:00 Noon

Sponsored by NJ AFL-CIO

Support Rights of NJ Public Employees

By Showing Up.

(If you are a New Jersey Public Employee, Bring Your Paystub.  You Will Receive a half-day's pay with your pay stub.)

Revolution Now.

Christie Says He Supports Wisconsin Governor's Walker's Plan

to

Outlaw Public Employee Unions.

Come Out To Show Your Support

for Public Employees.

The Battle of Wisconsin Rages On

Earlier this week thousands of Wisconsin public employees occupied the state capital in Madison.  The result was quite unlike what Republican governor Scott Walker intended when he had a bill introduced to make workers pay more for benefits and eliminate the right of public employees to negotiate collective bargaining agreements with their employers through their unions.  He expected a quick rubber stamp vote for the measure since his party controls both houses of the legislature.  What he got instead was an event of international proportions.  Union activists have come from all over the country to assist in the occupation of the state capital building and reporters have come from all over the world to cover the events.  For instance, this photo was posted by the Manchester Guardian all the way from the United Kingdom.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker thought he was Billy Bad Ass.   The governor cut taxes last year, despite the fact that the state is operating at a deficit.  Governor Walker thought he'd out-Christie our own Governor Chris Christie, who has gained a national reputation for ruthlessly pushing around unions representing government employees.  He introduced legislation to make workers pay more for health insurance and pension benefits.  Nothing unusual here, this is being done all over the country as the recession caused state budgets to go into the red and politicians look for a way out that does not involve raising taxes.

Governor Walker went one step further, and decided to try to emasculate the unions which represent public workers.  His bill would deny unions the right to negotiate contracts with management covering wages and working conditions.  Unions would no longer be able to collect dues through deductions from employee paychecks and unions would have to conduct elections each year to maintain their certification as representatives of each workplace.  This law would effectively destroy the power of unions to represent workers.  It would apply to all public workers except police, which would retain their right to negotiate collectively.

Walker thought the move was going to be a pushover.  After all, it was his  bill and his party, which supports the measure, controls both houses of the legislature.  He overplayed his hand because he wasn't counting on two things.  First, the unions were not ready to quietly walk away into the dustbin of history and secondly the Democratic lawmakers figured out a way to outmaneuver the majority party.

The Republicans first tried to introduce the legislation in the Senate, but they couldn't  because all the Democratic senators left the state and vowed not to return until the governor agrees to negotiate with them about removing the language baring unions from the workplace.  The governor says this point is non-negotiable and sent the state troopers out to arrest the senators and bring them back to the state house so they could vote.

Since the senators were in Illinois, they could not be arrested by Wisconsin authorities.  Because they did not come to the chamber, the senate could not conduct business because they did not have a quorum.  This stalled the measure until the senators come back.  Wisconsin does not have the filibuster in their senate, so the only way the Democrats could stop the matter was to boycott the meeting.

The measure was supposed to come up in the assembly, which is also being boycotted by the Democrats.  If the lone Independent assemblyman shows up, the Republicans can consider the bill and pass it in the lower chamber.  However, if he does not show up, they have the same problem as in the senate...no quorum, so they can't vote there either.  As far as I can tell, nothing happened in the assembly yet either.

At the same time all this was going on, union workers occupied the state capital building and the surrounding grounds.  In order to prevent the governor from removing them without the use of excessive force, the unions have kept the area packed with workers both night and day.  (Thank God, this is not Egypt, we don't use bullets and tanks to clear out mass demonstrations.)  Unions from all over the country, most notably the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have sent in workers to keep the building packed while others go home for rest breaks.

All this has attracted national attention.  The protest caught the eye of President Obama who sent his expression of support.  Of course the Wisconsin governor told the president to but out of state business.

How is this playing out and who is winning the propaganda war.  Governor Walker so far has come off looking like a fool.  He has resorted to wild stunts like sending the state troopers out to arrest senators and has threatened to call out the National Guard should the unions call a general strike.  He has been powerless to move the measure forward.

The unions on the other hand have gained a national forum to educate the public about the value of organized labor and the need for unions in the government workplace.  They have shown that the Republicans are not unstoppable if workers choose to stand together.  They have served as an example for workers across the country so they will be motivated to act should their politicians decide to try to destroy unions in their states.

What is happening in Wisconsin is important for New Jersey workers.   Here too, the governor has been using legislation to set the terms and conditions of employment.  So far Christie has managed to be more successful than Walker because rather than trying to ban unions outright, he has been moving in piecemeal fashion to define the work arrangement through legislation so there is little for unions to negotiate.

For instance, Christie has proposed drastic increases in health insurance premiums and pension costs for public employees while at the same time reducing benefits.  He hopes to accomplish this through legislation, not at the bargaining table.  Unlike Wisconsin, our Democrats so far have lapdogs for the governor, largely because the governor has Senate President Stephen Sweeney as a messenger boy.  For instance, Sweeney, who is president of the Ironworkers union has introduced legislation to increase health insurance costs, and his buddy, Senator Donald Norcross, who is president of the state International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers introduced a bill which passed both houses that would require all future state employees to live in New Jersey.  Although other Democratic legislators have initially objected to some of the program being fed to Sweeney by the governor, Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver and others usually come around to support the senate president's proposals.

Why do Norcross and Sweeney want to sell us out if they union presidents.  The short answer is that the governor bought them out by pushing through economic development projects that provide work to construction workers in South Jersey.  For instance, work is expected to resume shortly on the Revel Entertainment casino in Atlantic City.  The project was stalled until the state agreed to advance a loan with taxpayer money equal to 20 percent of the value of the finished project.  The governor also recently sighed legislation to subsidize construction of a gas-fired electrical generating plant in Deptford and has promised $100 million in tax credits to any companies willing to manufacturing wind turbines in a state-owned industrial park in Paulsboro.

Perhaps these aren't bribes in the traditional sense because neither Sweeney nor Norcross are personally enriched by them.  But the governor has certainly used the power of his office to buy the loyalty of two Democratic senators and break union solidarity.

What is to be done?  We can only thank the Wisconsin Democratic legislators and the state's unions for what they have done.  So far, Christie has stuck to petty antics like the battle of Lincoln's Birthday (see previous post).  But since he hasn't even begun to negotiate a new contract with the CWA, there's no telling what he had in mind for July.  If Walker was successful, no doubt it would have been very possible that he would have tried to outlaw unions here too.  Make no doubt about it, Christie supports what Walker is doing.  If you don't believe me, see what Christie said in this article from NJ.com.  http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/02/gov_christie_supports_wisconsi.html

Since Walker has made a fool out of himself,.this is far less likely now.

What is going on in Wisconsin is part of a broader trend where governors aree trying to use legislation to snatch power from unions so they can cut benefits and hold down wages.  Politicians see workers and unions as being weak and that taking them on is the logical place to find more money for state services without raising taxes.  For more on this, see this article from CNN.Com.  http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/18/news/economy/union_protest/index.htm

We need to keep the heat on.  Force the governor to negotiate with us, rather than trying to legislate our benefits.  We also need to show the Democratic legislators in this side what side their bread is buttered on.

We can't replace all of them.  There's no need to.  In order to bring them around to our side, all we need to do is knock out Sweeney and Norcross in the elections in November.  I haven't checked, but if anybody is running against them in the June primary, you should vote for the opponent, no matter who they are.  New Jersey has a sore loser law and once a candidate loses a primary election, they can't run in the general election either.  And of course, if Sweeney and Norcross survive the primary, we must vote Republican and get them out.  True, the Republicans will also be hostile to us, but they will lack the power and union connections that Sweeney and Norcross have.  They would just be greenhorn freshman senators with little influence.  And of course, we can replace them with Democrats during the next senate race.

Go Ahead. Take Lincoln's Birthday Off. I Dare Ya



Abraham Lincoln was the first member of the Republican Party to be elected president.  He successfully presided over the Civil War and was assassinated by a Confederate sympathiser shortly thereafter.  You would think that a governor who prides himself on his Republican credentials would show more respect for the man who put his party on the map than he has in the following incident.


At the end of the day, Lincoln's Birthday was a normal workday for unionized civilian state employees this year, as it was last year.  However, Governor Chris Christie, who never likes to loose, decided to sow some more confusion because he lost the battle with the unions over the day after Thanksgiving last year.

So he could furlough workers during 2009 and the first part of 2010, Governor Corzine entered into an agreement with the unions called the Memorandum of Agreement.(MOA).  The Governor let us have most of what was in the MOA without any problem.  He didn't mind furloughing us six times in 2010.  He then gave us 8 extra days off to pay us back for being furloughed 12 times in the period from July 2009 to June 2010.

His problem came with the next part of the agreement, which said we got the day after Thanksgiving off and that we would work Lincoln's Birthday instead.  The big fat crybaby said the MOA was not binding and we would nave to work Black Friday.  The union sued and the courts said the agreement was binding and we got Black Friday off. 

However, Governor Christie, like any other schoolyard bully, is a sore looser.  To make his point he said that unionized workers could have Black Friday off, but non-unionized workers such as management, temporaries, and political appointees had to work.  All the big shots used their vacation time and took the day off of course, leaving low-level non-union people on the job.  That meant they had to heat and light the 13-story Labor Building at taxpayer expense for maybe 25 people on Black Friday.

Since bullies never give up, nobody really knew what was going to happen on Lincoln's Birthday until we got there.  Last week, as expected, the governor was back up to his old tricks.  Here is the full text of the memo from the Governor's Office dated 2/7/2011.

From:  Yvonne Catley
Sent:  Monday, February 7, 2011 12:59 PM
To:  Debbie Mahal
Subject:  FW: Lincoln's B-day

To:  All Employee Relations Coordinators and the Nine State Colleges and Universities
From:  Governor's Office of Employee Relations

This notice will address the observance of Lincoln's Birthday on Friday, February 11, 2011 for civilian Executive Branch employees.  Pursuant to 2009 Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) entered into by the state and the State's civilian unions, the covered civilian Executive Branch employees received Thanksgiving Friday in 2010 as a paid day off and those same employees agreed to have Lincoln's Birthday in 2011 treated as a regular work day.  Because Lincoln's Birthday 2011 remains a statutory holiday, legislation was needed to change its status to a regular work day.  To date, there has been no legislation adopted to change the date to a regular work day for State Executive Branch employees in 2011.  Beginning in 2012, the law provides that Lincoln's Birthday will no longer be a holiday for state employees.
 .
Although civilian Executive Branch employees, who normally have off on a holiday will not be compelled to worked that day, you should be aware that the Governor's office will be open and fully staffed that day and employees reporting to work will be allowed  to work. The Governor understands that this may create inequities, in that certain MOA employees will have received an  extra day off on the state after Thanksgiving 2010, pursuant to the MOA.  The Governor intends to address those issues in the future.  Law enforcement personnel, not covered by a MOA, will operate under the terms of their collective bargaining agreements.  (Italics and bold type not in original)

What's really going on here?  First, since we took Lincoln's Birthday off last year under the MOA as a mandatory furlough day, the problem isn't that Lincoln's Birthday has to be a paid day off.  The governor just seems to say that the day has to be a day off

And if that's the case, why is he forcing his employees in the Governor's Office to work.  They are not under the MOA.  They are non-union and should be entitled to celebrate the day just as any other state employee.

My guess is he wants the law changed so that the day is no longer a state holiday.  I don't know why.  The law already says that it will no longer be an official holiday starting in 2012, so what's the rush.

The only explanation is that he is a crybaby.  He wanted to try to bully the unions to work on Black Friday against our agreement with the previous governor and he lost.

What gives about the sentence in bold type.  The one that says  The Governor intends to address those issues in the future.   Everything before this says that everyone can take Lincoln's Birthday off except police and correction officers, regardless of the MOA.  Sure sounds like some kind of threat to me.  Just like the headline says, here is this holiday, you can have it off.  I dare ya!

What was the union's response to this memo.  Read their memo below:

To All CWA Members

As you know, under our MOA, we got the Day After Thanksgiving off and we agreed to work on Lincoln's Birthday.  The Christie Administration tried to violate the MOA and make everyone work on the Day After Thanksgiving.

Now, they have sent out a completely incomprehensible memo about Lincoln's Birthday.  Please be clear:

Lincoln's Birthday is a regular workday, and not a paid holiday for those who fall under the MOA.  We had off the day after Thanksgiving.

If you take off on Lincoln's Birthday, you need to be on approved leave.  If you have not been approved leave to be off on Lincoln's Birthday, GO TO WORK.

Now there is a first.  The management is telling people it is OK to take off and the union says go to work.  We live in a strange world, don't we.

On Wednesday, the labor Department's employment relations officer issued a memo which said that if you are non-union, then Lincoln's Birthday was a normal workday and that if you were nonunion, you could take the day off as a paid holiday.

This time we get the Indians reporting for work and the chiefs staying home.  Makes sense.  When the cat's away, the mice will play.  Now that's real efficient employee management for you.

Lincoln's Birthday was celebrated Friday February 10th.  What really happened?  Lots of people took off and we had about half our normal staffing.  Most people used their own time and took a 3 day weekend.  Management of course took the paid holiday off.

I don't believe too many people did not "get the memo" from the union and their immediate supervisors (who are also union members).  Practically all union people not on leave went to work like they should have.

Super Mooch

No offense to the people in this picture (I uploaded it from the web after doing a Google search for trailer trash), but you can take some people out of the trailer park but you can't take the trailer park out of the people.  And basically, many of the long-time residents still remaining in the formerly Slavic part of South Trenton are trailer trash living in row houses.

I was over a longtime friend's house last night.  He lives on Tremont Street which is a few blocks from my house, located off South Broad Street in Trenton.  My friend, I'll call him Joe here has known me since I got a job at the Trane plant on East State Street when I first came home from college in 1981.  Back then, General Electric owned the plant and it made central air conditioners and gas heaters for houses.

I remember when I got the job.  I just got done working a temporary job for an outfit called EWB Productions.  They were producing a promotional film for AT&T about their new computer operating system called Unix.  At the time Unix was super top secret stuff.  I had to sign a release agreeing to keep everything secret, a promise I kept for 30 years.  Since Unix is the operating system which makes the Internet work and that is common knowledge today, I feel I'm under no obligation to keep what I did secret anymore.

I was hired by EWB because they couldn't find a real secretary (makeup and curlers type) who knew how to operate an Apple II computer complete with Peachtree operating software.  They thought they would try a recent college grad.  Since I wrote for the Iowa State Daily when I was in school, they figured I was the man for the job.  You had to memorize codes to make Peachtree work, because back in the day, there were no mouses (mice) attached to computers.  Everything was done off the keyboard.

What I did was transcribe from a Dictaphone.  I got fired when I went on a job interview and gave EWB as a reference.  Then I learned it was a no-no to be a bad boy and job hunt when working for a temp agency.  (rub my nose in some cowshit please!).

Back to the job interview at Trane.  It was with Chuck Walker, a no-nonsense black guy who was a junior officer in Vietnam.  I don't know if he was a Lieutenant or Captain, but he was up front with the action.  Racial prejudice, is a time-sensitive thing.  The further back in time you go, the more prejudiced white people were, and I was pretty prejudiced by modern standards, but I kept my mouth shut. I told the truth on the job app and said I last worked as a secretary.  He told me there won't be any secing here, rather there will be a lot of sweating, and they were hiring me to lay me off.  I did get laid off four months later, long enough to get unemployment.

(forgive me for posting another half-finished article.  Come back in a day or so.  Promise to finish it.  Physical therapy is in an hour so I got to get out of here.)

Well it's the following Saturday and I have been back to work for a week.  Been really busy.

Back to the story about Joe and the characters on Tremont Street.

I got hired to work in the coil area as an assembler.  My job was to screw little metal plates to the coils so they could secure the tubes that carried Freon from the compresser to the coils that transfer heat from houses on central air conditioners.  At first I dantilly tried to put each screw into the holes and was falling behind.  Joe came up and said "grab a hand full of screws and shoot 'em in.  If they hit the floor, so what.  If you can't find a hole, press down and make a hole."  That was all I needed to know to keep up and we became friends.

Soon I went to his house on Jersey Street, met his girlfriend Lorrie and his son, little Joe and we began to regularly hang out together.  The relationship survived the time I got laid off at the plant.  We have been seeing each other ever since then.

Back then the first block of Jersey Street between Home Ave. and Tremont St.was a nice place/  Old ladies kept plants on their stoops, which they swept regularly.  Everything was neat and clean.  I liked going to the Jersey One Tavern on the corner of Jersey and Home and the Veterans' Tavern on the corner of Tremont and Jersey.

Even back in the 1980s when Joe and practically everyone else in the area of working age worked in the factories, heavy drug and alcohol use was the norm.  Lorrie used to tell her boyfriend to go down to the bar and get some crank.  I was like, "What's crank?"  Joe would say its shit that keeps you up and gets her off her ass so she will clean up and do some housework.  When she didn't want crank, she was looking for more cigarettes.

At parties there would be plenty of food on the grill and of course there would be lots of beer and shirtless, bearded men drinking it.  The pot would also come out and everybody would smoke until they got stoned.  In addition to these things, we'd occasionally break out some Jack Daniel's or some Spirytus alcohol.  Spyritus is something they drink back in Poland and the countries which formerly made up the Soviet Union.  It's 192 proof grain alcohol.  It has to be "rectified" to get to be this strong, meaning it is treated with lye during the distillation process, which makes it two proof stronger than Everclear which is only 190 proof.  Unlike Everclear, Spirytus can be drunk straight up because it has a much cleaner and smoother taste, kind of like vodka, which is what it basically is.  I have a buddy at work from Russia who tells me that in the old country, soldiers, students and other 20 and 30 somethings don't usually drink 80 proof vodka unless they are wimps.  Real youths in the old country drink straight up rectified grain alcohol when they party.  The old timers also use it to make a local version of brandy by mixing fruit and fruit juice with the booze and letting it ferment in the bottle for a while before drinking it.

No, you don't have to be Polish to drink the stuff, and this video proves it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKqfoZQ_Nwc&feature=related (it also proves the stuff exists)  You can buy it at Landmark Liquors, at the Capital Plaza shopping center on North Olden Avenue in Ewing, where Foreman Mills is located.  To show you how badass powerful this stuff is, watch this clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WycQ3aTGnN0&feature=related also, here's a clip about underage drinking in college that they would never put on Campus PD.  It features the closest thing made in the USA, which is Everclear.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On_m3V7ZMtE&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fresults%3Fsearch_query%3Deverclear%2B%26aq%3Df&has_verified=1

Needless to say, exceptional indulgence in partying South Trenton style will rot your brain out.  That tends to knock most people who grew up around here out of commission by the time they reach middle age.

Fast forward about 30 years.  Joe no longer works at Trane.  He became an alcoholic and no longer works anywhere.  He gets SSI, for over $700 per month as well as food stamps.  He is 58 and qualifies medically.  He had prostate cancer and they fried his hips by giving him too much radiation.  He now walks with a limp and can walk only for short distances.

But he is not the real super mooch.  He's just a garden variety Trenton mooch.

It takes his neighbors across the street to take that honor.  There is a mother living with her daughter and they also have several roomers in the house.  Both mother and daughter are heroin addicts and they are both on SSI.  The roomers are on general assistance from the county.  Everybody gets food stamps.

The daughter is a crack whore and screws black gangbangers in the basement for drugs.  Everybody walks around with that expression that Stepinwolf once described in a song as "tombstones in their eyes".  All junkies itch like hounds from the heroin and have that thousand yard stare.

Mommy gets a rental subsidy from Section 8.  Basically, Uncle Sam pays the rent.  They get a subsidy from the state to pay their electric bill.  It shows up on your electric bill as "universal service surcharge".  That's what it is for, to subsidize gas and electric service for the poor.  They get heating assistance from the LIHEAP program on top of this.  They get free cell phone service from the government.  They advertise this program on local TV channels.  You get 250 minutes a month free.  On top of this, they have a caseworker that actually goes to the store and buys them groceries and transports them to their house.

Boy, wouldn't it be great to have the government put you up so you can live in a house and do drugs and alcohol all day.

As you guessed, that part of town is no longer so nice.  The park across the street from the Hungarian Reformed Church on the corner of Beatty and Home is better known as Needle Park.  The area has become a regular ghetto and shows up frequently in crime stories in the Trentonian.

Neighborhoods like this gurantee that there are many more welfare kings and queens like Joe's neighbors out there.  Maybe one reason why our taxes are so high.

The Truth About Doctors



One of the advantages of being home sick for a month is that you get to see a lot of doctors.  I got to hang out in doctor's offices so much in January that it was almost as though I was working in one.  By spending so much time there I got to listen in on conversations between the staff and see how things really work.

This is my last week off from work.  Next Monday I get to go back to the office and put my repaired knee back to good use.  That's OK, because after a while even being home from the job gets to become boring. 

That's not to say that the last five weeks have been a complete waste. I got to do stuff I wouldn't otherwise have time for, such as frequently working on my blog.  I also got to hang out in a lot of different medical offices and listen in on the shop talk.  It's amazing what you can pick up by listening and observing.

When I went to the pulminologist on Tuesday, the place was packed.  I mean there was standing room only.  I asked one of the nurses what was up when I finally got in the back and she said that the people were all changing their appointments from Wednesday to Tuesday because they wanted to beat the ice storm.  New Jerseyians in general and the sick and elderly in particular are terrified by inclement weather.  I mean nothing either packs a supermarket or clears out a doctor's office like a New Jersey snowstorm.

I then got to see the doctor and got to discuss the results of my lung lavage.  He had to call the lab because they sent him the wrong report, without the information he was looking for.  When he got the results, it was just that I have simple chronic bronchitis which is a buildup of mucus in the lungs which gives you a chronic cough.  Nothing to worry about.  His solution:  he will order a nebulizer, which is a machine which pumps a medicated mist into the lungs.  He says that will clear out the mucus and make it easier to breathe.

What is going on?  Back when I was a kid, my family doctor told my mother that I had chronic bronchitis and was prone to getting something called the croup.  His test was simple.  Get out the stethoscope and listen to the lungs.  His remedy was to just put up with it,  Nothing really can be done, but you can take some cough medicine if the problem gets bad.

I went through life like this until I started coughing like I belong on a lung ward and my supervisor sent me to the doctor to bring back a note on what he could do about the problem.  My primary doctor sent me to a pulminologist.  I been to a few of them and also to ear, nose and throat doctors about the same thing over the course of my lifetime and no definitive answers.

So now I have been going to the same lung doctor for about four years and I still cough.  He came to the same conclusion that the old coot that my mother took me to when I was a kid came to.  The old guy was old in the early 1960s which means he graduated from medical school around 1910 or 1920.  And he came to the same conclusion that the modern specialist, with all his fancy tests and equipment came to.

Its just that it took the specialist about four years and perhaps $20,000 to get there.

Fact is that medicine is a business, and modern doctors are out to make money, plain and simple.  Can't blame the doctor.  He went to school for many years and has a lot of overhead because he has to rent the office and pay his staff and buy all the equipment.  You have a different agenda.  You just want your problem fixed.  You really don't care what it costs, after all it is all just insurance money.  You don't mind undergoing all those tests.  The insurance company is paying for them.  The inconvenience and discomfort many be worth it if modern science can assist the doctor in providing a solution.

But in many cases you don't get much real relief.  However, the doctor makes a lot of money.  Ever notice that when you go to see a specialist, you always have some condition that his speciality is qualified to fix.  I went to an ear, nose and throat doctor about the cough.  He wanted to operate on my nose to repair my deviated septum and open up my nasal cavity to get rid of my post nasal drip.  My lung doctor says my throat is clear and I don't have post nasal drip, but I do have sleep apnea and required sleep studies and a CPAP machine from a company affiliated with his practice.  It also looks like I can use a nebulizer from the same company, put probably will have the same problems afterward.

Fact is, doctors don't want to cure you.  If they did, you wouldn't come back.  What they want to do is manage your condition, so you get some relief, but still need their services for life.  Then you keep coming back again and again forever.

The tendency of specialists to want to fix almost any problem with some solution within their speciality so they can make money off you is why managed care health plans require you to get a referral from your primary doctor before going to a specialist.  The primary's job is not to cure you, but to make an unbiased guess on what condition you have so they can send you to the right doctor.  That way, you don't get the fellow in the picture above trying to fix you up.

This leads me to the second problem, which is insurance companies.  Private insurance companies should not be in the health insurance business at all because they have a conflict of interest.  The less care they provide, the more money they make.  Not good for you and not very good medicine.

One way insurance companies can save money is to cut reimbursement rates, or what they pay doctors for treatment.  That is a big problem in the physical therapy business because it interferes with their ability to provide decent care.  The therapy place bills at top dollar, but the insurance company doesn't pay that.  They pay what they want to.  Each company is different.  Horizon Blue Cross  managed care plans are notoriously bad payers.  Aetna is somewhere in the middle.  Blue Cross Traditional Plan is the best, closely matched by traditional Medicare.

One gimmick insurance companies have in the physical therapy business is they pay their full rate for the first exercise, three-quarters for the second, one half for the third, one-quarter for the fourth and nothing for the fifth exercise.  Some companies will also only pay for therapy to one body part each day, so if two parts are injured, you have to go to therapy on alternate days, one part or each day.  Stupid perhaps, but true.

Doctors have a way of fighting back against these tactics.  You pay me less per patient and each patient gets less time.  We'll keep up our revenue by pushing people through like cattle.  My therapy place so far has resisted this trend.  I get a full two hours per session.  But they say it is happening elsewhere.  They bill the same, but some places only do a half hour per patient.  Now you know why your doctor is giving you the impression of rushing you out of his office.  This makes it hard for him to figure out what is wrong with you.

Isn't the American healthcare system great!  Very expensive and not always very good.

Personally, I'd rather try to stay healthy in the first place by eating right and going to the gym.



How to Disturb the Neighbors



Libertad Lamarque was a famous Argentine singer and actress.  She got her start in the 1920s making tango records.  Her long career was almost as much the result as her ability to adapt to adverse circumstances as her talent.  For example, she learned how to sing tango because she was unable to secure work in opera as a soprano.  After slapping the future wife of Juan Peron, Eva Duarte (A.K.A. Evita) in the face while working on a movie, she was blacklisted in Argentina.  At the time, both women were in love with Mr. Peron, who was then a cabinet minister.  After Eva used her influence, Ms. Lamarque was unable to get work in Argentina so she moved to Mexico where she became even more famous.  At the time of her death in 2000 at the age of 92 she was still working, playing the role as a mother superior nun on a Mexican soap opera.  She recorded over 400 songs during her career, making her one of the most prolific recording artists of all time.

 The Princeton Record Exchange is a wonderful little store located across from the university campus on Tulane Street in Princeton.  This store sells a wide variety of new and used CDs, videos and vinyl records.  It is a throwback to the past.  Similar stores cannot be found elsewhere in the area outside of New York City or Philadelphia.

Several years ago after seeing my family doctor I went to Starbucks then to the Princeton Record Exchange to see what I could find for cheap.  I picked up a CD of some of Libertad Lamarque's early hits.  Prior to this time, I never heard of her.  To put it mildly, her early tango music was unique.  The CD included songs like La Chica de 17 and Negra Maria.  When she sang tango, she used her voice as a precussion instrument and carried the beat of the music rather than simply singing out the melody.

I liked the CD so much I went online and ordered some more of her music.  I found out she kept on making records right into the 1970s at least.  She did a variety of popular music as well as tango including Cielito Lindo among other things.  Some of this music is familiar to us in the USA, although it is normally played here without words.  It was good to hear the words that go with these songs.

Her resume also includes many movies as well as soap operas.  Here is the article about her on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertad_Lamarque.  Here is another biography on the English section of a Spanish-language website about tango.  http://www.todotango.com/english/creadores/llamarque.asp
As Billy Joel once said, "You can't get the latest sound from a story in a magazine."   And of course, you can't appreciate this talented lady by reading a Wiki article either.  So here are some links to her singing and performing in movies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIic8BQlZAc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHOu8KGA_Po  also see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH1bcDZxUcc where Libertad (the brunete) gets to show the blonde lady with the bad singing voice how tango is done.

Tango originated in the bordillos of Buenos Aires, and Libertad Lamarque is a little too refined to be an "authentic" female tango singer.  After all, she came from a relatively affulent background and got the benefit of training in the performing arts.  For someone a little more whorish, check out Tita Merello here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMiGOEwKSZM&feature=related .  I can gurantee that something this sexy back in the era it was made would never pass the US Motion Picture Code.  OK, it's PG, but that's about as strong as it got in the 1930s.  Here is Tita Merello's most famous hit, Se Dice de Mi, which is a humorous song about an ugly tramp.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfBW66KSSVQ  In the Spanish-speaking world today, this song is strongly associated with the television character Ugly Betty, who is known south of the border as Betty la Fea.

Tita Merello lived and worked around the same time as Libertad Lamarque. She was born in 1904 and died in 2002. She worked in legitimate show business from the early 1930s until 1995.  Here is a good biography I found on her.  The Wikipedia biography lacks detail, so I went with this one http://www.todotango.com/english/creadores/tmerelo.asp .  Like Lamarque, Merello had a long career as a singer and actress.  She also danced.  Unlike Lamarque, Merello grew up a street waif and worked for a time as a prostitute and got her start in show business as a chorus girl at a seedy bar where the sailors hung around to pick up working girls.  She got noticed and moved up to legitimate singing and acting roles.  She had no formal training in the performing arts and basically portrayed women that were like herself before she became famous.

There is a lesson to be learned here.  Cream rises to the top, the weak fall by the wayside.  Use what you got, work hard and don't give up and you will feed your face.  Go through life with your hand out looking to mooch off freebees and you will become the bum you aspire to be.

So disturb the neighbors by blasting some old latin music.

I Just Want to Wet My Beak

In Godfather II, when the young Vito Corleone who was getting his family business started with a dress-stealing racket, the local Moustache Pete comes along and tells him that he doesn't want much, all he wants is to wet his beak.  Pay me, or I'll go to the cops and you will be done.  In New Jersey today, thanks to rules set by the state and others, there is a whole lot of beak-wetting going on.  That's one reason why it is so expensive to get anything done here. 

I want to wet my beak in Godfather-speak means that I want my cut.  Sadly, this practice occurs not just in the fictional world of the Mafia film series, but also in everyday New Jersey business life.  That's one reason why it is so expensive for businesses to operate here.

Take real estate for instance.  Here a whole flock of vultures are out to take a drink, ultimately at the home buyer's expense.  First, you have the real estate commission, which is built into the price of the house.  This expense is expected, because after all, the agent is not going to work for free.  Then you have the mortgage application fee, the appraisal fee, the mortgage points, the paperwork processing fee, the fee for your attorney, the title search and title insurance fees, the fee for the termite and radon inspections, the fee for the engineering inspection, the fee for the municipal inspection as well as the fees to the contractors for remedying the problems found by all these inspectors.  After paying all these fees, you can be out as much as $20,000 on a typical house.

Much of what you are paying is required by somebody - the bank, the state, the municipality, etc., and a lot of it is mandated on the premise that you, as the buyer, cannot be trusted to make rational decisions on your own without help from the experts.  After all, if you didn't get the "benefit" of paying all the inspection and appraisal fees, you may just go out and buy a bug infested house complete with deadly radon gas, that is overpriced and has numerous structural defects.  Oh gosh!  That would be terrible!

I remember spending my teenage years in Lawrence Township located to the west from Route 1, near the Lawrence Shopping Center.  As all you geology experts know, Route 1 was built on an old beach, this location was picked for the roadway because it is relatively flat.  It also is the approximate demarcation line between the part of the state that sat under water back in the dinosaur days when temperatures were a lot warmer, and the part of the state that was always above water.

If you go to the west of Route 1, you are standing on what is the remnants of a mountain range, that was created over a billion years ago.  As evidence of this, there is a layer of sandstone located a few feet below the surface.  This is where the sandstone for locally-built brownstone houses came from when they were built in the 19th century.  At that time, there were several quarries operating, including one in Hopewell Township that is now used as the Quarry Swim Club.

By the way, I'm not an expert in all things, I just sound like one.  I have to give credit for this tidbit to my 9th grade earth science teacher who told us about the local geology.  Because he was able to localize what would otherwise be a pretty dry subject for a special-ed kid in junior high, he was able to hold the class's interest.  The fact that I remember the story is proof of it.

Contained below the ground in the formerly mountainous part of New Jersey is some radium ore.  This ore was mined in the past and used to make glassware that glowed in the dark as well as paint for watch dials.  These products went away when it became common knowledge that the radiation from radium can cause cancer which will kill you.  Not only that, but it became common knowledge in the 1980s that radium in the soil breaks down into radon gas, which will fill your house and eventually kill you over time.

It just so happens that the Slackwood section of Lawrence Township is a ground zero for radon exposure.  Apparently, there is radium in the rock under the houses, which seeps into the basements and can potentially cause cancer in the people who occupy homes there.  I grew up in one of those homes in the 1970s and have suffered no ill effects.  My mom, brother and sisters also do not have cancer.  My stepfather died of cancer, but did not have cancer of the lung, so the radon probably did not do him in.

I always thought Slackwood was a fairly good area.  When I moved there from Copperfield Estates in Hamilton Twp. in 1969, I believed I was going to where the rich people lived, and they were indeed better off than the people around Yardville.  So it was a desirable place to live, at least to the discovery of radon. 

I have a real estate license and remember showing a house on Harding Ave. in the early 2000s.  In the basement was a bunch of pipes on the ceiling.  The customer asked "What's the deal?".  I noticed one of the pipes had an arrow on it and writing which said "radon".  I told him the house has radon and was remediated.  That killed the sale.

Never mind people lived in this area for decades when nobody knew about radon and most of them were happy with their experience and never got sick.  Through a twist of fate, somebody discovered a remote health risk of living there and now people don't want to go there.  The government also uses it as an excuse to extort money out of home buyers so they can know of the risk.  (May I ask what is the benefit to anyone except the people who inspect for and remediate radon).  After all you can die from a piece of space junk hitting you on the head when walking down the street, and that is only slightly less likely than dying of radon exposure while living in North Jersey.

I bought a rental property in Trenton in 1985 and did not get the "benefit" of being extorted by the benevolent town and mortgage company.  At the time I was selling real estate on a semi-full-time basis and was a man in the know.  I wanted a cheap place to live because I wanted to buy a home but really couldn't afford one.  So I hooked up with a Mr. Brophy who was a drunk who was getting divorced from his wife.  Mr. Brophy's father left him about a dozen rental homes in Trenton and he needed to sell them right away to settle the divorce.

I got to buy a single-family home on Tyler St.from him for the princely sum of $15,000.  At the time Trenton did not have a city inspection program.  I bought the home with $1,000 down, plus attorney's fees and title insurance.  I took a 5-year mortgage for $14,000 from the owner and did not have to pay points, application fees or any of that jazz.  I also did not have to get the place inspected to satisfy the mortgage company.  Total out of pocket cost $1,800, which I paid from money I saved when I had a paper route in high school.

I still have the house today.  It has returned several times the original purchase price.  I am a happy camper.  Of course the place was trashed when I \bought it.  (It was a slum property, it was supposed to be trashed.)

Sad thing is, today this would not be legally possible.  The mayor wants to "protect" renters from exploitative landlords.  So there is a city inspection program.  When you buy a house it is inspected and violations have to be fixed before you can take possession.  Also, you must get it inspected every time you want to re-rent it.  You have to make repairs each time to satisfy the law.  Here's a bit of common sense.  If you are a tenant and feel your house is a bad deal, try moving or renting somewhere else.  Makes too much sense, doesn't it.

Who does this serve?  You, the home buyer know you are buying a slum property that needs work.  You, the tenant know you plan on moving into a slum property that needs work.  This program only serves to line the pockets of the city which charges for the inspections and the pockets of the contractors who make sham repairs to satisfy the requirements of the inspectors.

The end result is that it is not possible to legally sell or rent many homes in the city because they need too many repairs.   That's why there are so many vacant properties.  That's why many people simply ignore the law.  There are people who advertise that they will buy homes immediately without repairs.  They pay a steep discount from what the building is actually worth.  They then rent the property out, often without doing any work.

That's the way it is in New Jersey, the Extortion State.  Politicians pass stupid laws to protect people from themselves, then help their fellow travelers in the private sector reep huge profits from work they would not have otherwise gotten  if it wasn't all for the "protective" legislation designed to protect people from remote or nonexistant threats.

Let us protect ourselves on our own and save us a bunch of money.  Makes too much sense doesn't it.

More Government at its Finest

When I woke up this morning, it looked like winter wonderland outside.  Snow drifted up everywhere.  The radio announcer said that 12 to 18 inches fell across the Central Jersey listening area.

So you would think the state would be closed.  Think again.  Our governor, in his infinite wisdom has come up with a new invention to avoid the wrath of Jersey 101.5 for closing the state after snowstorms.  It is called the 3 1/2 hour delay.  My wife was told to report after lunch which would be 1:00 pm so she could work to 4:30 pm.

At the moment, this doesn't effect me because I will be off from work for the remainder of this week and all next week.  However, my wife still has to go in. 

Why would the governor want to put thousands of cars on the road to bring workers in for the afternoon, only to send the same people back home over rush hour?  After all, very little work is going to get done, because by the time people get settled into their routine, it will be time to go home.  In any event, only a few people will show up anyway, most will probably opt to take the whole day off.

Well, the advantage to the governor is two-fold.  He hones his reputation as a hard-ass who will not give snow days to adults, when those in the private sector (like AAA tow truck drivers) have to work.  Never mind that most large offices are also closed, if they work at Wal-Mart, then the state should be open too.

Perhaps more importantly, is the implications from the payroll prospective.  If workers actually show up at 1:00 PM, they will get paid three and a half hours disaster leave and three and a half hours straight time.  However, if they take the whole day off, they are charged seven hours vacation time and don't get the disaster leave.  In other words, Christie is playing it slick and is trying to get employees to use their own time.  For me, if I was working this week, I would report at 1:00 PM just to beat the state out of the disaster leave.

Moving on to other things now.  Let's see if the municipal snow plow operators can do a better job this time than the did after the December snow storm.  I should tune into to 101.5 just to hear the jerks complain about a "union slowdown" because it is taking too long to get their streets plowed.  I would like to say that perhaps if their favorite governor kept the millionaire tax around, state aid to municipalities would not have been cut and the towns would have a full complement of snow plow operators.  Lay off public works employees and suffer the consequences of unplowed streets.

Speaking of aid cuts and the 2 percent property cap, yesterday the Camden city council  passed a 23 percent property tax hike, effective in May, according to today's Philadelphia Inquirer.  The paper says that the city did not say what the extra money will be used for, or if the new revenue will allow some of the 166 police officers that were laid off earlier this month to be recalled.  Because of the 2 percent property tax cap law, this tax increase has to be approved by the state before the city can begin collecting it.

City officials say the increase is a necessary state to meet the state's mandate that the city wean itself off state aid.

What is happening in Camden proves the point of what I have been saying since last spring when Christie said he wanted to get rid of the millionaire surtax and pay for the tax cut with cuts in municipal aid.  First, the largest cities in the state will take the biggest hits.  These cities were receiving the largest state aid grants and have many low-income residents.  Since urban residents tend to vote Democratic, the governor believes they are expendable and can be sacrificed to bring about lower taxes for his mostly suburban supporters.

Also, people expect and deserve a certain level of services from the government, including police and fire protection for America's second-most-dangerous city (Camden falls right behind East St. Louis, Illinois, which is another urban hellhole).  These services can be paid for through state grants (supported by progressive taxation like the millionaire surtax), or by increasing the property tax burden on city residents, who can ill afford to carry it.  (Hence the proposed 23%  municipal purpose tax increase).  Either way, the piper must be paid.  Shams like the 2% tax cap aren't going to work in the long run, because the state will be forced to grant exemptions, just like is going to happen in Camden.)

It Wasn't as Bad as I Expected

Yesterday, I reported to St. Francis Medical Center for my lung lavage.  As I told you Tuesday, my doctor said that he wanted to do a broncioscopy to extract some mucus from my lungs by pumping water into the lungs through a tube he would put down my throat.  He could also take biopsies with surgical instruments if he saw anything.  He said I would be fairly awake for the procedure, although I would be partially sedated.

It sounds like some form of torture, but at the end of the day, the worst part of it was the drive to the hospital, which was during the middle of an unexpected snowstorm.  The nurses were real attentive.  Although they screwed up the IV on the first attempt, which hurt like hell, they struck the vein on the second go-round.

As for the actual procedure, it turns out I went into a deeper sleep this time than the previous time I had a broncioscopy done.  Then, I remember something being rammed down my throat and remember a drowning feeling.  This time, I only remember the camera going down my nose.  After that, I went out cold.  The doctor told me he accomplished what he wanted when I woke up.  Afterwards, I was coughing profusely, and the doctor said that was my body reacting to the water that was put down my lungs.  He hooked me up to a nebulizer, which is a machine with an inhalation tube that looks like a hookah.  You put the mouthpiece in your mouth and inhale.  After about a half hour the coughing fits went away.

While I wouldn't recommend the procedure to anyone for the fun of it, it wasn't as bad as advertised.

Here's Something I Don't Understand

Doctors were an important source of contributions for the Christie campaign.  Why this is I'll never know because it seems that one of Governor Christie's objectives is to water down public employee health benefits.  So why would physicians want to kill the goose that lays their golden eggs anyway?

Back in April, I posted an article called "Christie Contributors Outed".  In this article I posted the list op people that gave $3,300 to Governor Christie's general election campaign.  What I didn't realize at the time was that this article would prove to be the greatest source of traffic to my blog.

I pictured this list as a kind of hall of shame.  I originally thought people would want to look at it it see if some prominent person they do business with actually gave money to this jerk's campaign.  Over time, I found it was being used for much more than this.  The list has been actively sought after by fundraisers looking for a grouping of wealthy individuals likely to give money to Republican candidates.  Perhaps the opposite of what I intended, but I don't mind the traffic.  It has also been used by people researching companies before going on job interviews, by people trying to find businesses to shop there and even by people trying to find uncle Harry's home on Christmas Day.  It is indeed a list of many uses.

I also noticed another pattern over time.  Many of the top contributors are members of the medical profession, whether they be physicians, osteopaths, chiropractors or dentists.  But why would doctors want to give money to a Roveite Republican running for Governor of New Jersey anyway.  The first thing that comes to my mind is the most obvious.  Doctors on the average have the highest income of any of the occupations people normally engage in.  True, Oprah may make more than any doctor, but most actresses or TV and radio personalities (ALL-not just the big names) average less than the average doctor.  The same with lawyers.  SOME lawyers make more than most doctors, but on the average, lawyers make less.  You got the picture, if you want campaign contributions, go after the people who have it and doctors fit the bill.  They are regularly solicited by candidates of both parties for this reason.

OK, doctors have the money and may be inclined to give to political causes.  But why Chris Christie?  For this I have only two answers, both of which make little sense because they actually go against the doctor's financial self interest.  The first is that I give to Christie because I am a Republican and support all Republicans regardless of the individual candidate.  This is the same reason why many people vote a straight ticket year in and year out.  It is just that the physicians have more spare bucks than you or I to help them financially in addition to contributing their time and vote to a campaign.  Giving to ALL Republicans just because of their party affiliation may make sense if the doctor has political ambitions and hopes to run for office some day, but most people who contribute this way do so to fill an inner emotional need (Identification with a particular party) not because of any rationally thought out purpose.

The second reason is more self-serving and rational on the surface, but in reality even more illogical.  Some doctors gave to Christie and other conservative Republicans because these candidates promise to lower taxes.  Since doctors have high incomes and tend to live in nice homes, they pay more income tax and property tax than the rest of us.  By putting Christie in power, they were hoping he could lower or at least stabilize their tax bills.

Self-serving, but short sighted.  The only reason why physicians have high incomes is because they get paid fairly well when people go to the doctor.  The only way most people (Corzine was the exception) can afford to see the doctor and have medical procedures performed is because they are covered by insurance.  In fact, most doctor's offices have signs saying "no referral, no visit" or "no insurance, no visit".  Why?  Because the concept of paying doctors directly with your own money is so rare is is considered a virtual impossibility.

The insurance system is what supports the high charges.  For instance, Horizon is billed $200 every time I go to physical therapy, which is little more than a trip to the gym with a personal trainer for about 2 hours each time.  I go three times a week, so that is $600 per week or $1,200 every two weeks.  Now what would happen if I had to actually pay full price for that therapy?  I wouldn't go because I couldn't afford it.  And that would go for 99 percent of the public.  If people had to pay full price for every test, doctor's visit and surgery, the price of medical services would either have to drop considerably for physicians to maintain patient volume, or the number of doctors would have to drop off drastically because only the rich could afford the prices physicians now charge. 

So, a society where most people have good health insurance is a requirement to maintain out health care system as it now exists  (including high physician salaries).  So why would doctors support a governor who has already reduced the scope of health coverage available to public workers and probably plans to reduce it further.  Remember, this governor has publicly promised to increase employee health insurance benefit costs to 20 percent of the value of the policy.  He will probably also increase co-pays and require workers to pay out of pocket for tests and surgical procedures as well.

Lower taxes by reducing worker health benefits?  Perhaps it's possible, to some minor extent.  Remember program costs and interest expenses eat up a larger part of the state budget than wages and benefits, so any savings to the public would be small.

For the physician, less inclusive, more expensive insurance will mean fewer doctor visits and perhaps lower reimbursement rates for treating public employees and retirees.  Remember there are 800,000 retirees and that state, county and municipal government employ more people than construction and manufacturing combined.  So watering down benefits will substantially reduce revenues at physicians offices.

Also, because county, state and local governments have pretty much a uniform health care plan, these employers together are what is known in economics as a "market leader".  Basically, if I am an employer and hope to attract the same people that government employs, I better be able to match them on my salary and benefits package, or the workers will go and work for the government instead. (Kind of like the local grocery store having to match Wal-Mart on prices to get customers).  Reduce the benefits in the public sector and private employers employing similar workers will have little reason not to reduce theirs as well.,  So if you work in a large organization, say a pharmaceutical company, defense contractor or insurance company, you better hope that the governor doesn't mess with our benefits.  And if you are a doctor, expect that these people are now also going to be less likely to afford your services.

Yes, Chris Christie may cut doctor tax bills, but I bet you his policies will cut their income even more.  They are fools for backing him.

Tomorow I Get Waterboarded

Tomorrow my pulminologist wants me to get a bronchioscopy because he thinks I might have bronchitis.  Basically a bronchioscopy, or a bronc as it is known in the profession is a medical test where the doctor inserts an endoscope (camera and tools) down your throat and into your lungs.

I had one done a few years ago.  They partially knock you out with some Michael Jackson juice up the arm through an IV.  They place a rag over your face to cover your eyes and jam a tube down your throat.  You gag like hell, but I really didn't remember too much when it was over.

This time the doctor says it will be rougher because he will be doing something called a "lung lavage", where they shoot water down your lungs with the camera down there too and they watch what is going on.  He says he needs me more awake this time because he needs me to "perform some maneuvers", whatever this means.

Sounds like something the did back in the Inquisition.  Perhaps I could hook my doctor up with Torquemada.  I'll let everybody know how it went, but it sure doesn't sound too good.

The knee surgery is healing up fine and therapy is progressing nicely.  I figure I'd get this lung thing done now while I'm still out of work.

You Better Be Packing Heat

Even when Camden had a full complement of police, I'd bet you would probably not want to walk these streets in the night or even in the daytime.  Now, after the city has been forced to lay off almost half its police force, moving about on foot has become even more dicey.

Earlier this month, the City of Camden laid off 335 workers, including half the city's police force and one-third of its firefighters.  Camden is one of the poorest cities in the country and was forced to lay off its public safety employees because of cuts in state aid - cuts made necessary by Governor Christie's decision to take $1 billion out of the state's revenue stream, by ending a surtax on the incomes of millionaires which affected the top-earning 1,700 families in the state.

City officials claim that the loss of the 166 police will not affect safety in the city.  They say they will be able to do more with less by deploying resources more efficiently without compromising public safety.  But I bet you that in the end, less police on the street will make this city which has the second-highest crime rate in the country behind East Saint Louis a more dangerous place.

The Trentonian commented on layoffs of firemen in Trenton back in December which were made necessary by the same aid cuts.  It said that the layoffs were necessary because Trenton's "welfare check" got cut.  I live here and pay $3,500 in property taxes a year and resent this condescending remark.  We are not beggars and are not looking for a welfare handout.  We have a substantial part of our city taken up by state office buildings and the city is expected to provide security for the thousands of public office workers which work here every day, without collecting any property taxes on these buildings.  In Trenton's case, the state aid is not "welfare".  It is simply compensation in lieu of taxes for expenses the city incurs as host to the state government.

In Camden, the situation is somewhat different, but it still does not excuse the aid cut and the resulting layoffs.  Camden simply does not have enough taxable properties to support itself.  While you may characterize this state aid as "welfare", it is still necessary in order to provide a necessary level of city services to insure the safety and well being of the people who live and work there.

If you are reading this from the comfort of your home in a suburb, don't feel so smug.  Crime problems in the cities have a way of spilling over into the suburbs.  Criminals left on the street often have access to cars and those that don't probably can reach your community by bus.  Less police means more criminals moving about and they are all on the prowl looking for opportunities to make illegal money by robbery, burglary, drug dealing, prostitution, and what have you.

So, I'm playing up the crime threat to garner sympathy for higher taxes on the state's top earners.  May I ask you then, where are all those jobs the governor promised will be created if we stop taxing these families so harshly?  Have you recently landed one of them (ha ha, there ain't any.).

Well then, you work for a living, live in the suburbs and are not a millionaire.  You haven't noticed any more crime lately.  Then how have you been affected by the aid cuts.  Just look at what happened after the blizzard what took place this past December.  While in the office, the person in the cubicle next to mine keeps Jersey 101.5 on all the time.  People were calling in all day saying their streets weren't plowed and the station was accusing public employees of pulling a work slowdown across the state so the snow would remain on the streets longer.

The reality was different.  Towns across the state had to lay off public works employees (translation:  trash collection and road crew personnel).  These are the workers that get to ride the plow trucks around after snowstorms.  Fewer public works personnel meant slower snow cleanup, which was particularly noticeable after a big snowstorm.  Fact is you can't have your cake and eat it too.  The millionaire tax was needed to support the level of state aid that nearly all municipalities in the state got before the Christie cuts.  Without the surtax, layoffs were needed.  Makes me wonder what is going to happen with the Proposition 13-style two percent property tax limit if the state does not make up the shortfall what will develop over time with more state aid.

If I was the governor, I'd be looking to restore the millionaire tax.  After all my job requires me to hang out in Camden several times a month.  He is putting my life at risk.

That's a Whole Lot of Zeros

We all heard this jingle.  "You have a structured settlement but you need cash now.  Call J.G. Wentworth, 877-CASH-NOW!"  I'm not knocking Wentworth's business model (There's other companies out there that do the same thing, like Peachtree.) but you have to wonder.  What kind of person would need their services in the first place.

Before we get to why you would want to sell a structured settlement let's explain a little bit about what Wentworth does and what goes on before you even see your money.  Let's say you won a lawsuit.  Instead of giving you your $500,000 up front, the judge agrees to the defendant's request to pay you over 20 years.  Remember only you get your cut over the next 20 years.  Your attorney is paid his third up front.  The doctors and the hospital are paid their medical bills up front too.  So at this point, you owe neither the medical bills from your injury nor the attorney's fees.  You also won't be seeing the whole $500,000, but will rather get what's left over after attorney and medical expenses, let's say that's $250,000, on which you will earn interest while it is being paid off.  Your portion of the settlement comes out to $1,700 per month.

By the time the settlement was awarded, about four years have passed since you filed your lawsuit.  Since you waited almost two years to file after you fell down the steps at Waterfront Stadium when you went to see the Trenton Thunder play (your attorney wanted to wait the two year limit to see the extent of your medicals before filing), it has now been almost six years since you broke your back.  You have since recovered from your injuries and found a job, so the $1,700 per month is just extra gravy, you don't have to live off it.

So your choices now are collecting $1,700 per month for 20 years (not a bad payout, since even if you can't work, you can still collect Social Security Disability on top of the settlement), or you can sell your settlement to a third party like Wentworth.  Since structured settlement companies are in the business to make money, they are not going to pay you the whole $250,000.  I never done business with one, so I don't know what cut they take, but my guess is it is probably fairly hefty.  Let's suppose they are willing to give you $175,000 up front.  That means you loose $75,000 off the principal, plus the interest you would have gotten off the principal over the 20 years.

Still want the product?  Probably that depends on how bad you "need cash now".  Remember you either got your regular job (if you can work) or are drawing about $1,500 a month for life (with annual cost of living raises) from Social Security.  So even if you are out of work, you won't be destitute if you take the settlement, because between the lawsuit money and the settlement, you will be earning $3,200 a month, which is enough to support a modest lifestyle for a retiree.  But if you take the $175,000, your income drops to $1,500 a month, which is cat food territory (I guess you'd be needing a new cook book.).

So what gives?  Perhaps your wife works and you still work too (the whole lawsuit is gravy).  You want to buy a house.  Then getting $175,000 up front may help.  Same thing if you are single, crippled and on Social Security, but have a business that you could open with the $175,000.  Providing you are successful and can earn more than the $1,700 per month, you come out ahead.

Like they say on the edgy series of anti-smoking commercials, "Really?".  Starting a successful business or buying a home would be good uses for $175,000, but is that what structured settlement customers really do with the money most of the time?  Not hardly.  I bet, most of them are up to their eyeballs in debt and will do anything to get out.  So they sell a source of income for a steep discount to get an immediate cash fix.

Sound familiar?  Think about the state's finances.  New Jersey is in deep doo doo.  We are running a massive deficit, but the public still expects the criminals to be kept off their backs, the fires put out and the potholes filled on the roads.  They also like it when the politicians come up with new ways to spend money like more grants and loans to attract businesses to the state (Christie's idea) or offering full-time kindergarten and preschool to more kids (Corzine's idea). 

So what's a poor state with lots of expenses and too little revenue to pay for them to do?  Enter revenue anticipation bonds.  They're kind of like J.G. Wentworth for governments.  What New Jersey and some other states do is sell bonds and pledge revenues from a sources like the tobacco settlement or insurance surcharges billed to drivers with points on their licenses to get money up front.  They then use the revenues to pay back the bonds.  Of course, New Jersey does not get nearly as much from revenue anticipation bonds as it could get from sitting back and waiting for the money to come in from the various taxes and fees it collects.  But in the end the state is just another credit junkie.  It will sell its lifeblood for a steep discount to get Shylock off its back for a few months.

So next time when the papers blame public employee wages (about $55,000 per year average) and benefits for the state's financial problems, just remember the real cause of the problem.  I don't expect you to take my word for it.  Check out this bond placement attorney's resume to see all the New Jersey revenue anticipation bonds he has handled. 

Check out the dollar amounts.  That's a whole lot of zeros.  Imagine the money the state would have really gotten if it didn't do the equivalent of you selling your paycheck for the next 20 years to Wentworth for a lump sum?  Here is the link: www.ostowlaw.com/mjo_transactions.html

Here's an Endorsement for a Service Nobody Wants

Here's a surefire way to have a good time.  Go out and get some knee surgery.  Like I said, knee surgery is something nobody wants.  However, some times you need it.  And in that case, you want to get the best knee surgeon you can find.

When I was out walking my pit bull Chief back in October, we ran into another person who was walking his dog.  Chief decided he wanted to go over and check out the other dog.  Since Chief weighs about 110 pounds and pulls like a locomotive, he can be hard to control.  Since his decision was sudden and because I wasn't prepared, I was knocked off my feet when he lunged for the other dog.  Down I went square on my left knee cap.  I landed on a stone and punched a nice hole in my knee.

Of course it hurt.  After all, I had a nasty cut, so I didn't bother to get it checked out right away.  A couple weeks later it was still hurting so I called my orthopaedic surgeon at Princeton Orthopaedic Associates.  It took a couple more weeks to get an appointment and I didn't get to see the doctor until December 6.  When I saw Dr. Moskwa, he told me I probably had a torn meniscus but he couldn't say for certain until I got an MRI.  I had the MRI after waiting a few days for the insurance company precertification and then had to wait another week to see the doctor.  The girls at the appointment desk wouldn't make the follow-up appointment until after I actually got the MRI because they needed to know the insurance company would approve it.

I saw the doctor and he said my knee cartridge was indeed torn and he recommended surgery.  He was able to get me scheduled for the procedure on January 4.   By the time I was ready to go to the surgery, my knee was already feeling better.  My, isn't our health system wonderful.

The one part that went right was the surgery itself.  Dr. Moskwa told me that he found my injuries were much worse than he suspected and that I definitely needed the operation.  Amazingly, I was able to walk without crutches the same day I had the operation.

Today I started physical therapy.  I am walking fine, although it still hurts.  I have no infection or anything like that, and only have two small holes in my knee.

If you need a knee operation, go see Dr. Moskwa.  It may take a while to have him actually do the work, but the wait will be worth it.  He does excellent work.