Enterprise Risk Management Ignorant congresswomen Don’t recognize problem; Their plan: Spend more

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL 23rd District), and fellow Demo congresswoman, Fredericka Wilson (D-FL 24th District) are planning to introduce legislation in the U.S. House to prevent another Rehabilitation Center of Hollywood Hills (FL) event.

The event — a power outage caused by Tropical Cyclone (Hurricane) Irma cost the lives of 14 Center residents.

The problem is: Neither congresswoman has a clue to the underlying problem and, consequently, their expensive “fix” will prove useless.

Wasserman-Schultz (in)famously distinguished herself by being fired from her job as DNC chair¹ and, in the process, helped her candidate lose the election.

She also is known among many of her constituents as not being particularly helpful when her assistance is requested.

Wasserman-Schultz made local tv news on Monday, October 23, 2017, when she told tv reporters that she was introducing legislation to require nursing home owners to install back-up electricity generators with sufficient fuel for 90 hours. She also wants to make restoration of power a Priority One for the power companies.

Given her brief time in front of the cameras, she lacked the time to note her Miami colleague, Rep. Wilson, was introducing a similar bill. Wilson was beating the drums for such legislation even before the Center disaster in which 14 people lost their lives².

The Problem

Forcing nursing home to install emergency generators with 90 hour — or even 90 day — fuel supplies is a bandage; a bandage that will cause push-back from nursing home owners — many of whom are politically powerful and have influence with both parties — that will tie up any legislation for years if not decades.

Lack of emergency generators, which are prone to failure in any event even if there is abundant fuel for them, is not the problem.

Neither is forcing the power companies to make nursing homes a restoration Priority One — along with hospitals, shelters, and other Priority Ones.

The solution to the problem is basically simple:

Force nursing home to implement policies and procedures— and to practice them — that will move residents to other locations “in the event of.”

Caveat: When I was a young lad I was a military medic; I know moving a patient is NOT the first option. I later worked as an Enterprise Risk Management practitioner who played the “What if?” game to identify risks and to find ways to avoid or mitigate the discovered risks.

The Rehabilitation Center of Hollywood Hills, the immediate focus of the proposed legislation, is across the street from a Level One trauma center, Memorial Regional Hospital. Literally across the street.

The hospital, which DOES have — and practices — policies and procedures “in the event of,” had space available to accommodate the Center’s residents. Memorial discharged as many patients as possible before the storm, and rescheduled admissions until after the storm passed. (The Emergency Room remained open and staff was on hand to care for patients forced to remain in the facility.)

Irma’s intensity was not consistent throughout its “stay” in Hollywood. (I know; I’m a Hollywood resident who “rode out” the storm at the house.) Between wind and rain bands, patients could have been moved to Memorial. Ambulances could have shuttled between the Center and the hospital when other forms of resident transport were contra-indicated.

The power issue timeline³ reads like a “He said, She said.” The bottom line is that when temperatures inside the Center started to rise, and then resident body temperatures also rose, the Center should have initiated evacuation of the most sensitive residents.

Again, a Level One trauma center with available space was just across the street. If the Center’s personnel were not qualified to move residents, Memorial had staff to move them … in the end, Memorial personnel moved residents to the hospital or helped evacuate them to other facilities.

The congresswomen want to penalize the nursing homes for failing to have long-term emergency power. Better, congress should insist that these facilities

(a) have policies in place “in the event of” and
(b) practice implementing the procedures “in the event of”

“In the event of” is not limited to loss of commercial power nor is it limited to relocating residents and personnel. It must — must — cover all eventualities.

What congress should do is to insist that every nursing home and medical facility have well-publicized and practiced policies and procedures and that (at least) twice-a-year exercises are monitored by outside teams. In the case of Rehabilitation Center of Hollywood Hills, both the local fire department’s Emergency Medical personnel and Memorial personnel — doctors, nurses, and other patient care personnel — should monitor the exercises.

Should residents be relocated during the exercise? Preferably no, but perhaps one in four exercises should include relocating patients. The VA hospital in St. Petersburg FL recruits volunteers as “patients” when it does its annual, in the public's eye, exercise.

Depending upon generators is, at best, foolish.

Is the fuel supply reliable?
Will the generators start when needed?
Will the generators perform to specifications under full load and for how long?
Are the generators sufficient to provide power for all the facility’s needs?

I have “sticked” more than a few fuel supplies, and I have manually confirmed that generator batteries were charged (else I would be pulling starter ropes in the rain). I am not a generator expert; I don’t know ALL the things that can fail. I do know that “things happen.” The only way to prepare to respond when “things happen” is to have practiced policies and procedures in place.

Fourteen people died. Useless legislation is being proposed — and may never be passed, depending on the clout of the nursing home industry.

Legislation, preferably STATE legislation perhaps based on Federal guidelines for a more or less national consistency, is needed.

But not misguided legislation that fails to address the core problem.

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References

1. Fired: http://tinyurl.com/yb8k5ntv

2. Wilson before event: http://tinyurl.com/y7u9et9d

3. Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/ybjg38nv

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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Opuscula Medicare Advantage Annual plan review

Comparing plans

IT’S “THAT” TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. No, not halloween nor Thanksgiving. It’s Medicare Advantage plan decision time.

Like any annual (or in come cases, semi-annual) contracts, Medicare plans need to be compared.

This concerns only Medicare ADVANTAGE plans. Extra cost Medicare “Supplement” plans are noted only in passing.

ANYONE WHO THINKS THEIR monthly $104 (plus or minus) payment to Medicare pays for Advantage (or Supplement) plans is mistaken. The government pays the private insurers — and pays them handsomely — for each Medicare customer the insurance companies sign up, ergo in some “senior-heavy” areas, competition for customers is fierce. It’s a toss up who pays for more tv advertising: car dealers introducing the new model year or insurance companies trolling for customers.

Evidence of Coverage

All Medicare Advantage and Supplement plans must be certified by Medicare. Most insurers put their Medicare-approved plans on-line. Once approved, the plan benefits cannot be easily changed. (Providers — physicians, medical facilities, pharmacies — may change and certain prescription drugs may be changed, but the basic benefits are “cast into concrete.”)

Medicare.gov’s Advantage¹ information is the best place to start to find plans by ZIP code and insurers².

Since I do this exercise annually for myself and some friends, I create a spreadsheet. My spreadsheet starts off with things critical to me:

Primary Care Provider/Physician (PCP): Is my PCP listed?

If not, am I willing to change? Plans normally make their list if providers (ibid.) available on-line.

Specialists: Do I have any specialists I need to continue seeing? Is the specialist on the provider’s list?

If not, am I willing to change?

Medications: Are all my medications listed and how much is my co-pay. Prescriptions are “tier” based; the higher the “tier,” the higher the co-pay.

All of my medications are Tier 1 or Tier 2 ($0 co-pay) for all but one plan I reviewed; that plan has the same medication listed as Tier 3 with a $47-a-month co-pay.

Finally, I try to see if the plan’s PCPs are capitated. “Capitated” means that while the plan may list hundreds of specialists, a plan PCP may refer only to a limited number of these specialists.

I had a capitated plan — once. Never again. If I want to see Specialist “A” who is on the plan Provider’s List, I don’t want to be told my PCP cannot refer me because that specialist is not on my PCP’s list. (I kept the PCP and changed plans.)

The Evidence of Coverage (EOC) lists the co-pays by tier. In order to find out (a) if a drug is supported and (b) what tier the insurer has assigned the drug (Tier 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5) you need the plan’s Formulary — drug list — this also should be on-line.

EOC standard format

MOST EOCs follow a standard format. For 2018, I found only one that fails to follow the standard Medicare EOC format. Because the one offering failed to follow the standard format, I eliminated it from consideration.

Since most plan EOCs follow the standard alphabetical format — albeit some with very minor variations — it is relatively easy to compare benefits. Medicare requires that many benefits have $0 co-pay and $0 deductibles.

Two areas potential customers need to address are hospital costs and outpatient surgery costs.

My first Advantage plan (AvMed) had $0 co-pay for the first 5 in-patient days, and then $40/day for Days 6 through 20, than back to $0 co-pay for the remaining days. The sales person told me that most hospitalizations were for 5 days or less; three operations later, the sales person’s statement has proved to be 100% correct. The same concern applies to mental health care.

For some reason, most plans charge a higher co-pay for outpatient surgery at a hospital and substantially less at a stand-alone day surgery facility.

All plans discourage trips to hospital emergency rooms (ERs). In lieu of running to the ER, plans promote use of urgent care clinics. Some plans have a $0 co-pay for visits to clinics while requiring an $80 (or more) co-pay for ER visits.

On the other hand, if the ER visit ends up with an admission to the hospital, the ER co-pay is waived, so any “life-threatening” issues still should be taken to the ER.

Ambulance co-pays also vary widely by plan.

Some plans offer an Over-the-Counter (OTC) medicine benefit. For 2017, one plan offered to pay up to $45-a-month for OTC products. The same plan for 2018 is offering $25 for three months , the suggestion is that Medicare Advantage and Supplement plans are “bleeding money” and looking for ways to reduce costs.

Insurance, even Medicare Advantage and Supplement plans, is a profit centered business, ergo the number of local and national (e.g., Aetna, Blue Cross, Humana, United Healthcare) insurers are aggressively seeking new members (customers).

A quick comment on referrals. Most Advantage plans now require PCPs to refer patients to specialists. In my opinion, this is a good thing. The PCP is the patient’s primary medical contact. It is for the patient’s benefit that the PCP knows what a specialist ordered — especially medications — so assure that there are no contra-indications. (Actually, when it comes to drug interactions, the pharmacist is the best source of information.)

Advantage or Supplement plan

Many — most — Advantage plans are zero EXTRA cost — they are not “free” or “no cost” since the customer still must pay the monthly Medicare fee. All Medicare Supplement plans have a “supplemental” fee.

(Supplement plans also are called “Medigap” plans.)

Some plans, such as UnitedHealthcare’s AARP Supplemental plans, require membership in the related organization (e.g. AARP).

According to Mediare.gov³, Every Medigap policy must follow federal and state laws designed to protect you, and it must be clearly identified as "Medicare Supplement Insurance." Insurance companies can sell you only a "standardized" policy identified in most states by letters.

All policies offer the same basic benefits but some offer additional benefits, so you can choose which one meets your needs..

Each insurance company decides which Medigap policies it wants to sell, although state laws might affect which ones they offer. Insurance companies that sell Medigap policies:

• Don't have to offer every Medigap plan
• Must offer Medigap Plan A if they offer any Medigap policy
• Must also offer Plan C or Plan F if they offer any plan

The Medicare.gov site has an internal link to a list of Supplement plans by ZIP code and by cost, along with a list of companies offering each plan type.⁴

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CAUTIONARY NOTE: The most reliable sources for Medicare Advantage and Supplement plans is Medicare.gov. Some commercial (not “.gov”) sites fail to include all available plans since not all insurers are willing to pay to be listed. Medicare.gov lists ALL plans available in a particular ZIP code.

Medicare Resources

1. Advantage: http://tinyurl.com/opgeeqz

2. Available plans: http://tinyurl.com/2c6o5fh

3. Supplement: http://tinyurl.com/h5vfups

4. Compare plans: http://tinyurl.com/y8ooewmj

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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Opuscula Trump: We’ll destroy Enemies unless Changes are forthcoming

TR would be proud

I CAN HEAR ALL MY LEFTIST acquaintances saying “Woe to us, the world is coming to an end because Trump threatened North Korea and Iran.”

PRESIDENT Trump — and like it or not, he IS POTUS — said to the UN what he’s been saying to Americans, and anyone else who cared to listen, that we will not be cowed any longer by rogue nations and nation want-to-be’s (e.g., Daesh, Taliban).

The U.S., once a leader of the “free world,” has for several presidencies fallen from that lofty position to that of, as China’s leaders once opined, a “paper tiger.”

Is President Trump doing something new, unheard of?

Hardly.

If a bully — be the bully be in a school yard or sitting in a seat at the (dis)United Nations — threatens, act to thwart the threat and to convince the bully that threats bring retribution.

The Republican Roosevelt (Theodore) sent the Great White Fleet¹ around the globe from December, 1907, to February, 1909, to impress others of America’s power. It never fired a shot in anger, but it did convince other nations that the U.S. was serious about protecting its shores. Unfortunately, it did not prevent Germany and Austria-Hungry from attacking Serbia in 1914, kicking off World War 1.². After the war, American President Woodrow Wilson managed to convince a number of nations to form the League of Nations, an unsuccessful forerunner to the (equally unsuccessful) United Nations.

No credit given

President Trump’s version of the “Great White Fleet” is a mix of sea and air power and land-based ICBMs; the president’s threat that the U.S. can “totally destroy” North Korea to the “missile man” (Kim) is well within America’s capability.

HOWEVER, at the same time, the president, in his maiden UN appearance, commended China and Russia for attempting to convince Kim to tone down his rhetoric and belligerent behavior. President Trump did NOT tell the UN assembly that the U.S. would “totally destroy” North Korea; only that it could. One letter (“w” vs. “c”) makes a major difference.

The president’s exact words, according to the Washington Post³, no particular friend of POTUS, were: ”“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” Trump added, “If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph.”

Hopefully, Kim will take the president seriously and, finding a way to save face (the [pick-an-ally] made me do it), rejoin the society of nations. He has, after all, proven North Korea can make bombs and that North Korea can build delivery platforms. Iran is in a similar situation and needs to consider that the U.S. could “totally destroy” it, too. Again, it’s allies — primarily Russia — can greatly influence the ayatollahs and imams to take a more civilized position.)

Nations the U.S. has saved — some several times — have been thumbing their noses at America’s do nothing presidents. Unfortunately for President Trump, he may have to make good on his word regarding North Korea (or Iran, which ever comes first). Also “unfortunately,” President Trump has said — promised — some things he has been unable to deliver, e.g., a better-than-Obamacare health plan than has support across the aisle, the stop infiltrators fence at Mexico’s northern border (ex-president Obama already paid for a wall across Mexico’s southern border — no help for the U.S. and another hit on the U.S. taxpayers’ pocket). To be fair, the decline in American prestige began long before Obama (Bush 1 and his incomplete Iraq incursion and Bush 2 with his “we have won in Iraq” foot-in-mouth fiasco quickly come to mind).

The problem, and there always is a problem, is that there is a reasonable certainty that not everyone in North Korea — or Iran — is behind their self-proclaimed glorious leaders. Destroying either country would cause the deaths of many who want regime change. Unless the U.S. has a popular leader to fill the void left by Kim’s or the ayatollah’s demise — and their sycophants who cling to their leaders’ skirts, nothing will be gained as proven in Iraq. This has been a frequent failure for American governments (the Bushs’ Iraq, Obama’s “Arab Spring” are cases in point.)

During World War 2, the Japanese considered their emperor a god; Japan’s population suffered greatly and many willingly died for him, but it wasn’t until the events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in which thousands of civilians died or were injured, that Japan sued for peace.

The question: Will Kim and the ayatollah sacrifice their people for their personal glory?

Granted, “collateral damage” is a consequence of any war, particularly a war fought remotely (with missiles fired from ships or planes). If nuclear weapons are involved, and both Kim and the ayatollah assure the world they WILL use their nukes — the former on America and the latter on all “infidels,” starting with Israel, will the U.S. (and Israel) respond in kind?

There is no guarantee that attacking North Korea won’t cause Iran to fire its missiles at anything within range — including nearby U.S. ships.

President Trump may have been less than “politically correct” in telling Kim and the ayatollah that the U.S. will not be bullied.

A word about his “America First” statement. The full statement reveals that he said he believes in America First, and that the leaders of ALL the nations represented at the UN also should put their countries first; it’s a leader’ obligation to put his or her country’s interests above those of other nations. It does NOT mean brow-beating other nations; it does NOT mean ignoring other nation’s plights, but it DOES means that the incumbent will consider America’s needs — including freedom from fear of North Korean or Iran nukes — ahead of trying to appease megalomaniacs.

Perhaps my leftist acquaintances are uneasy with his speech, but they at least can rest easy that any threat from North Korea or Iran will be dealt with harshly so they can continue to try to undermine the elected government.

For a leftist “take” on Trump’s appearance at the UN, read The New York Times⁴ “editorial as news” article.

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1. Great White Fleet: http://tinyurl.com/nrvgo7a

2. Start of WW1: http://tinyurl.com/q93c37x

3. Trump at UN: http://tinyurl.com/y7hydtln

4. NYTimes “newsatorital”: http://tinyurl.com/yaopkpta

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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Opuscula Test in controlled Environment is not The same as ‘real world’

Taurus revolvers and Liberty CD ammo: Incompatible?

I OWN A TAURUS Model 605 wheel gun. It’s made to fire .38 Special and .357 ammunition.

Firing 20 rounds of “range” ammunition is OK; but when that amount is exceeded, as it often is at a firing range, “bad things” happen.

Likewise, trying to fire more than five rounds of Liberty Civil Defense .357 ammunition requires an exercise in patience.

A FEW WORDS about the Liberty Civil Defense ammunition.

Get the lead out

From an “environmental” point of view, the ammunition is “friendly” in that is lead free. From a self-defense point of view, the ammunition is pretty good; it’s “a deep cavity projectile” (a/k/a “hollow point”) and fragments inside the target. From a shooter’s point of view, the .357 claims “reduced recoil.” Compared to American Eagle’s .357 that’s 100% accurate; shooters' hands quickly feel the difference.

According to Liberty’s web site¹, all Civil Defense ammunition is “copper, monolithic, hollow point, fragmenting, (for) personal defense.”

My experience with the Liberty .357 product in the Taurus 605 has been “fire five rounds and wait.”

While I never intend to get into a gun fight, having to wait approximately 5 minutes between reloads even at a firing range — most of which charge by the hour — can be, at best, frustrating. It seems that the Liberty copper, monolithic etc. cases swell and cannot be removed (ejected/extracted) from the Taurus until the cases cool and return to their original diameter.

This did NOT happen with the Federal “range” ammunition; fire five rounds, tip up the revolver, the cases fall out. No need for the extractor rod.

A Taurus problem or a Liberty problem?

My experience with Liberty the company has been even worse than with Taurus..

I complained both to Liberty and Taurus. Taurus eventually responded — more on that soon — but even after web mail AND snail mail, Liberty still ignores the customer.

I posted the issue to a gun owners’ web site; the response from fellow shooter — NOT Liberty — was that perhaps Liberty was packing a bit more powder than the Taurus’ tolerances can handle. Another shooter on the Smith and Wesson user web site reported no complaints using the Liberty .357s, but that shooter was firing a Smith & Wesson revolver.

What I told Taurus

When I FINALLY got Taurus’ attention, I explained that I had two (2) problems with the 605.

Problem 1: The Liberty issue; cartridges go in but won’t come out.

Problem 2: The cylinder gets out of alignment when more than (about) 50 rounds of ammunition are fired. The barrel of the weapon also gets more than “warm” to the touch. (The temperature is not a concern by itself.)

Mind, with the 605, the shooter loads five rounds, fires five rounds, dumps the spent cartridges, and loads another five rounds. I don’t use a speed loader² and I save my brass, so it’s not a quick process and there is some “cool down” time between “salvos.”

I explained to Taurus that I fired about 30 rounds of Federal .38 Special 158 grain LRN (target) ammunition and then fired American Eagle .357 158 grain jacked soft point ammunition. I managed to fire perhaps 20 rounds before the cylinder misalignment occurred. (I’d rather fire 100 rounds of Liberty’s .357 than 10 rounds of the American Eagle — the recoil is painful.)

What Taurus did

To its credit, Taurus paid shipping both ways. Then it kept the gun somewhat longer than the estimated six weeks — I didn’t complain; we had an unwanted guest named Irma that disrupted everything.

In the end, I got a call from Taurus telling me the gun was fine. When the gun was returned, I read that Taurus had fired 20 (only 20) rounds of .357 range ammunition and that nothing was amiss.

Of course nothing was amiss. Taurus could not or would not replicate the conditions under which I reported the failures.

I offered to hand carry five rounds of Liberty Civil Defense .357 to their gate. “We can’t accept that.” Well, how about calling Liberty — the company is less than 200 miles north of the Taurus facility — and asking Liberty to send a box (of 20) cartridges … Liberty probably would have sent the goods gratis. Nope; not an approved vendor.

Basically, Taurus “tested” the 605 in ITS environment, not the shooter’s. If I know in advance that a product will fail if it is pushed past a certain point or will fail if an unusual product is used — yet not a prohibited product, and the Liberty is NOT “prohibited” on any Taurus literature I have seen — I will make certain to stop testing before reaching the failure point or will refuse to test in the customer’s environment.

Taurus is satisfied it met its “lifetime” warranty agreement, albeit it did nothing to resolve either problem.

Liberty remains silent.

And the customer fumes.

Since I cannot get a response from Liberty, I am forced to buy a competition’s product. How not to increase market share.
I would LIKE to fire a box of Liberty CD .38 Special ammunition, but I am loath to spend the money and wait a week, or three, for the ammunition to arrive and then face the very good chance that the .38 Special cases will stick in the 605’s chambers as did the .357s.

Cartridges vs. bullets vs. shells vs. cases ³

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 1.  Liberty information: http://tinyurl.com/y93hb5oa

 2.  Speed loaders: http://tinyurl.com/ybqkxcvb

 3.  Ammunition definitions: http://tinyurl.com/y95xpdo3

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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Opuscula FREE GIFTS

And other abuses of the language

Yes, I KNOW English is a “living language” and, as such, constantly is open to modification.

But I ALSO know, in part due to the educational system that molded today’s parents’ appreciation — or lack thereof — of the language, it is sorely abused.

I am NOT referring to Ebonics¹, ghetto English that found favor among the liberals a few decades past; I writing about “tv English” as spoken by tv “personalities” and advertising “spokespeople” of all races.

Free gift in one of my least favorites.

If whatever is offered is a “gift,” it MUST be free; “free” and “gift” in this case are redundant.

At least the good folks who designed the old Cracker Jack box never promised a “free gift.” The box let kids (of all ages) know there was a “surprise” inside. When I was a kid, the prizes were pretty good; today, not so much.

But wait …

As we near Thanksgiving (in the U.S. and Canada) the song Over the river and through the woods comes to mind. In this instance, “over” is used correctly; the sleigh and the passengers riding on it will literally pass over the river — assuming there is a bridge or the river is covered with thick ice. Over means “above,” not “more than.” (Lazy spelling, e.g., “thru” for “through” is another matter for another time.) The same problem occurs with “under.” The troll lived “under” the bridge; but quantities are “less than” not “under.”

I am amused when someone tells me this or that object is “cheap.” It may indeed be cheap, but what the speaker usually means is “not expensive.” “Cheap,” for this scrivener, always had the connotation of “shoddy workmanship with inferior materials” or, currently, “Made in China.”

Years ago, when cigarettes were advertised on radio and tv, the Winston commercial read “Winston takes good like a cigarette should” to which another voice corrected the first announcer’s grammar with “Winston tastes good AS a cigarette should.” Bad grammar won out; a company for which I labored as a technical writer asked me to comment on a proposed advertisement. I made the notation about grammar and pretty soon I was looking for a new job.

Fowler’s followers regularly end sentences in propositions. I presume they are too lazy or too impressed by their words to rewrite the thought to avoid the faux pas. Winston Churchill apparently was a Fowler follower, at least in respect to ending a sentence with “to.”

THEN WE HAVE “unique.” I hear how a product is “very unique” or “most unique” and I know the copy writer never got past the third grade (if that far). When we are gathered together “en familie” and hear “most unique” it’s a race to see who can point out the error first.

When I was a reporter in Trenton NJ (Times-Advertiser) the night editor had a pet peeve: a “landfill” was, according to Sam, a “dump.” He was right … and he was wrong. The basic difference between a dump and a landfill is that the waste dumped into a “landfill” is covered over, unlike a dump. I think Sam just enjoyed needling the local township politicos.

I will concede that I am a language curmudgeon — pedant may be a nicer descriptive, albeit not by much. I for too long labored as a reporter, editor, or technical writer, the latter work demanding precision of language; ambiguity in language could cause injury or death to a reader.

As a junior high student the chorus performed the music from My Fair Lady an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion with words and music by Lerner and Loewe². To this day I STILL wonder Why the English can’t speak … the language, only in my case, I substitute “Americans” for “English.”

I don’t expect the average citizen to have a vocabulary to match that of the late Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. or Wm. F. Buckley Jr., but it would be nice if schools —and parents — helped today’s youngsters expand their vocabulary. Reading books — hard cover, soft cover, “e” — is the easiest way, but having three grandchildren, I know prying them away from their smart phones or tv is a “challenge.”

Seeing Mr. Humphrey and Mr. Buckley, I am reminded of yet another language faux pas: So-n-So SENIOR. Unless “senior” is on So-n-So’s birth certificate, So-n-So should be referred to as “the senior Mr. So-n-So.” Normally “junior” is dropped from a junior’s name at the senior person’s demise.

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1   Ebonics: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ebonics

2   My Fair Lady: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Fair_Lady

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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Opuscula Remembering A better time

North Korea, Iran, left wing extremists, right wing extremists, mass murders, ersatz news, et al and etc.

I’m tired of it. I can turn off the tv, unplug the radio, cancel the “news” blogs, and walk past the newspapers at my local Publix, but what do I have to fill the void?

At my age, memories; good memories mostly.

Memories are made of this

I started making a list of things I liked thinking about. Even alphabetized it — yes, I am THAT type person.

As a small child in Indianapolis I remember a large 7-Up sign on a building at a 5-way intersection that flashed 7-Up You like it It likes you. I also remember walking — unescorted — down the alley to the public library and, starting with first grade, to P.S. #2, Benjamin Harrison Elementary. PS #2 has been replaced by a newer, sleeker version, but the library still is at the end of the alley.

I remember walking to an A&W Root Beer stand¹ with a “sitter.” I suppose we could have caught a street car or trackless trolley — back in the day there was a distinction. I have no idea how much a mug of root beer cost, but a nickel was all it took to make a call from pay phone. Try and FIND a working pay phone today.

I miss billboards. I remember when Lady Bird Johnson decided they were a blight on America’s landscape and had to go. I also recall Ogden Nash’s doggerel: I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall, I'll never see a tree at all Having traveled the country from North to South and East to West on several occasions — I was a reporter and editor in my younger years — I miss the billboards.. They helped keep me awake and looking forward to whatever was ahead of me — South of the Border comes to mind or Wall Drug.

I really miss Burma Shave signs². I remember them as a passenger in a 1948 maroon Ford coupe — back when “coupe” meant “two doors.” We’ve allowed ourselves and our offspring to get sloppy with the language. A “moment” used to mean, according to the dictionary, 90 seconds; not more, not less. Now a “moment” is like an Einstein explanation of time: relative. (Whose “relative” is anyone’s guess.)

Motels used to have “personalities.” There were motels that offer individual cottages for guests, and there were motels that offered quarters shaped like a teepee, albeit they were called “wigwams.”³.

It’s hard to find a non-chain motel and even harder to find a motel that doesn’t look like every other motel you passed the last 200 miles.

Hotels used to be “semi-grand,” but save for a few brands in a few cities, most were close to bus or train depots that usually were situated in less desirable parts of town. I stayed in a nice hotels in Montgomery AL and Baltimore MD and a not-so-nice hotel in Boston MA.

When I was a kid in South Florida, the movies were a quarter and for that two bits kids saw cartoons, a serial, and a suitable-for-their-age feature. Movies also had news reels; tv was in its infancy. What movies did NOT have were commercial after commercial for outside-the-theater vendors. Now I pay too much and I still have to sit though advertisements for things I neither want nor care about.

Still on movies — and this may be unique to Phoenix AZ c 1956 — but I used to hitchhike into the local drive-in. Cars were $1 no matter how many people crammed into the flivver; walk-ins were 50 cents. I was one of many with a thumb out. The theater had bench seats for the walk-ins and stow-aways.

Back in the day hitchhiking was commonplace. While the military officially frowned on hitchhiking even back in 1960, it was a way to get from Point A to Point B on “air”; “A’re you going my way?” Hitchhike today? Not likely.

I did thumb my way from Orlando to Miami one night. The cops in a string of Palm Beach County towns, to keep me moving and out of trouble, hauled me from city limit to city limit. One cop had a Ford with an Interceptor V-8 … we went though his town at “slightly” above the speed limit.

Cracker Jacks used to have real toys — a “surprise in every box.” Today, there still is a surprise — a disappointment. I suppose the prize went away with the 5 cent Coke.

Stuckeys⁴ road side gas and food stops. I thought all the Stuckeys were associated with Texaco (and the Man with the Star) but on looking for Stuckeys on the WWW I discovered it also had deals with other oil companies, many of which are just memories.

Driving across country meant seeing different oil company brands — Pure, Phillips, Union, 76, Esso, Sohio, Standard, Cities Service. Some still survive: Shell, Mobile (but sans Pegasus), Sunoco. I can’t recall the last time I saw a Texaco station. I vaguely recall seeing a Pure station somewhere, but maybe not. I pumped gas and washed windshields at the Cities Service station on the Broad Causeway⁵ between North Miami and Bay Harbour Islands “back in the day.”

Back in the day, gas stations were (a) full service and (b) had actual mechanics who could get the vehicle running.

Texaco reminds me of “Uncle Miltie” and Milton Berle’s other major sponsor, Nestles: N-E-S-T-L-E-S, Nestles makes the very best. Maybe, maybe not.

Times seemed quieter then but perhaps that’s because there were other things in — and on — the news besides murder and rape. There were problems; many of those problems remain, in exacerbated form, today. On the other hand, there have been thousands of technological and medical advancements that, in one way or another, benefit us all.

I like my memories, but I would not want to revisit the reality of the time.

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Sources

 1.  A&W stand: http://tinyurl.com/yct3h927

 2.  Burma Shave: http://burma-shave.org/jingles/ and https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2289808

 3.  Teepee vs. wigwam: http://tinyurl.com/y97qffx7

 4.  Stuckeys: http://tinyurl.com/y9jewd4k

 5.  Broad Causeway: http://www.pbase.com/image/132047198 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_State_Road_922

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Comments on Memories

ERM-BC-COOP Las Vegas massacre: Could it have been Avoided or mitigated?

HIND SIGHT, MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACKING, reflecting on what I know from the media, is more than an interesting pass time.

As an enterprise risk management practitioner — albeit a retired one — I always provide an “after action” report, if only for myself.

COULD THE MASSACRE have been predicted?

Probably not. By all accounts, the killer's kin and friends contend the killer wasn’t angry at any particular group — race, religion, ethnicity, etc. His inamorata left for her parents in, I believe, the Philippines a few weeks before the rampage. A peaceful parting?

Still, there were those proverbial “red flags.”

One: Local man checks into a local lodging.

While it happens that a person with a relatively local address might check into a local lodging, it’s not that common.

Two: The guest, a single person, checks into the facility with TEN suitcases.

I’ve known actresses who checked into a hotel with LESS luggage.

Three: The guest — with his 10 pieces of luggage — extends his stay beyond a day or two.

It is said that the killer was a gambler, and no matter how lucky, the house odds are in the house’s favor; win $5, lose $10. If you are big in Vegas, add several zeros to the $5 and $10.

Four: Apparently no one found it odd that the killer’s closet wasn’t stuffed with 10 suitcase’s full of personal haberdashery.

Most lodges offer to change their guest’s linens at least weekly. Perhaps the killer’s arrangement with the inn was one of “Do Not Disturb..” Still, the killer apparently ordered room service.

Bottom line: There WERE red flags had any one been alert to them . . . and had anyone SHARED the information with others. Shades of 9-11-2001 when one federal agency had information it failed to share with another federal agency that had other information it would not disclose. More than 3,000 people perished, largely due to a turf war between federal agencies.

In Nevada, and much of the Intermountain West, turf wars between the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management are infamous.

Given the availability of mail order ammunition, and the relatively low price of .223 caliber rounds, it would be nigh on impossible to know if the killer was stockpiling thousands of rounds of ammunition. A thousand rounds of .223 costs about $230.

Lessons learned

Of course this is all just Monday morning quarterbacking, but it might prove useful to prevent, or at least mitigate, a similar tragedy in the future. I’ve heard more than one person suggest that there are others “out there” who want to beat this killer’s record of dead and wounded.

The one thing I always preached was BE ALERT TO ANYTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY. To my mind, 10 pieces of luggage for a single guest would seem “out of the ordinary.”

But then I’ve never been to Las Vegas. (Nevada, yes; Las Vegas, no.)

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PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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Opuscula Two major airlines Strand passengers

Do governments have obligation to aid passengers?

Within the last 60 days two major airlines have called it quits. Neither airline was the national carrier for the country in which the companies were registered.

Germany’s AIR BERLIN was the first to fold, leaving some passengers stranded far from home. For some airline watchers, including savvy travel agents, the Air Berlin demise was hardly a surprise. Other travel agents, particularly in the U.S., kept on selling tickets on Air Berlin flights right up until the end. A check of one of Air Berlin’s web sites, https://flights.airberlin.com, does not suggest the company is grounded; potential passengers simply cannot find future flights.

England’s MONARCH AIRLINES shut down without warning, stranding passengers far from home.

According to the BBC (http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41466722) there were four reasons for Monarch losing its crown.

The BBC claims that Monarch failed because

1.   Fuel prices
2.   Competition from rivals, both UK and elsewhere in Europe
3.   Change in market plan from “long haul” flights
4.   Terror attacks in several of Monarch's destinations.

CNN under a headline reading German airline goes bust after Etihad pulls plug (http://tinyurl.com/yaehowwe) because Abu Dhabi's Etihad, Air Berlin’s major stockholder, “refused to finance another bailout.” The story was dated August 15, but thanks to a German government handout, Air Berlin continued to sell tickets to the unsuspecting.

Abu Dhabi's Etihad also “pulled the plug on Alitalia earlier this year, prompting the Italian national carrier to enter administration. The Italian government is now trying to find a buyer.”

Meanwhile, Germany’s flag carrier, Lufthansa, is considering options to acquire some of Air Berlin, but there has been no suggestion that Lufthansa would honor Air Berlin tickets.

Unlike the United States, many countries are heavily involved with national businesses; government representatives sit on company boards, as do bankers.

For stranded passengers, or those still waiting for refunds for unused tickets, neither the Germans nor the English have offered help. The English Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has put a plan in place to bring stranded Brits back to the island, but there is nothing, to date, for people either in England or elsewhere to return to their point of origin or even to return to the island for flights home, wherever that might be.

One airline, Abu Dhabi's Etihad, within a year brought down three major carriers: Air Berlin, Alitalia, and Monarch. According to CNN Etihad announced Tuesday that group CEO Australian James Hogan will step down in the second half of 2017 as the company conducts a strategic review of the growth model he pioneered.

"We must ensure that the airline is the right size and the right shape," said board chairman Mohamed Mubarak Fadhel Al Mazrouei.

Interestingly, Abu Dhabi's Etihad refuses to carry Israeli passengers because the United Arab Emirates—its home country—does not recognize the Israel (http://tinyurl.com/yas8yah5).

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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