Dick Rowland Image ‘Shoots (News, Views and Quotes)’ – Over 6,000 Americans die each year due to a shortage of human organs. LifeSharers is a non-profit network of organ donors. LifeSharers members agree to donate their organs and tissue when they die. Uniquely, they direct their donations first to their fellow members. Non-members can have a member’s organ if no member who is suitable match for them wants them. By creating a pool of organs available first to members, LifeSharers members create an incentive for non-members to become donors and join the network. This incentive, which will become more powerful as membership in LifeSharers expands, is the key to reducing the organ shortage and saving lives. Membership in LifeSharers is free. Anyone can join at https://lifesharers.com Parents can sign up their minor children after enrolling themselves. Questions? Call David J. Undis (615) 356-3918 or e-mail daveundis@lifesharers.com – DC Union Scandal. Escaping the eagle eyes of employees of our local daily print newspapers was the 11/25/02 raid by federal investigators on the homes and offices of the Washington, D.C. Teachers’ Union President, her assistant and the Union Treasurer, all of whom resigned. The raid was in search of items purchased with over $2,000,000 in union funds including $500,000 of custom made clothing, a $6,800 ice bucket and $25,000 to store 300+ pieces of winter clothing. It all started when an American Federation of Teachers (Parent Union) accountant discovered financial improprieties. By the way, the WTU’s fidelity bond only covers losses up to $100,000. Source: The Education Intelligence Agency https://www.eiaonline.com – From Reason Magazine October 2002 comes this item: Catherine Crier, host of Court TV’s engaging Catherine Crier Live, may be glamming it up now on the small screen, but she spent years in real courts without a makeup crew in sight. Before her TV career, Crier was a civil litigation attorney, an assistant district attorney, and eventually the youngest state judge ever elected in her native Texas. “We’ve lost sight of writing a law with a very specific purpose, determining whether it a accomplishes that goal, and enforcing it appropriately if it does. In the court system, selective enforcement occurs all the time. White collar criminals can hurt hundreds of thousands of people and they are rarely punished, while a garage burglar will get plenty of attention in our system. In criminal justice, certain laws have failed. Drug laws are the primary example. They haven’t diminished drug use, yet we continue to elevate punishment and spend money to accomplish an unachievable goal.” That sounds like good sense to us. How about you? Why don’t you print it out and send it to your favorite legislator with a note from you? – Hug a tree Do you want to hug a tree? Do you want your children to be able to enjoy nature, including trees? Look to John Mount, a forester, a lover of the environment and an employee of Southern California Edison. He has saved 20,000 acres of Edison owned California forest, made it self-sustaining, and enhanced the beauty and use of it for all. Read about it in The Bakersfield Californian 1/2/03 https://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/story/2384583p-2437767c.html It is a great story with lots of potential meaning for Hawaii where we only seem to hear or see government edicts as solutions, followed by no solution at all, followed by demands for more laws or rules etc., etc. – Hawaii’s own Cliff Slater’s last essay in the Honolulu Advertiser “Government cannot create jobs” was trumpeted throughout the world by the Reason Foundation https://www.reason.org Reason alert 12/27/02. ‘Roots (Food for Thought)’ Quoted in the Ethan Allen Letter November 2002 https://www.ethanellen.org From A Vermonter (Formerly) in London I find it interesting that the overwhelming majority of the people favoring a single payer health-care system have never lived under one. If a poll were taken of Americans who have first hand experience with government-run health care, the poll would show at a minimum 90/10 against. I lived in England for four years and experienced single payer health care first hand. Here’s what I saw: – Medicine on a Budget: Since the government allocates a fixed amount of money to the health care budget, when it’s gone, it’s gone. While I lived in London, hospitals regularly went on reduced schedules, doing only emergency activities, during the fourth quarter of the year. – Two-Tier Health Care: Two health-care systems exist in England. One is for those who can purchase private insurance and one is for those who rely solely on the National Health Service. Under NHS a hip replacement operation would have a six-month waiting list. Using the same doctor, a person covered by private insurance could have it done in a week. – Health Care by the Numbers: My wife has a history of cancer and went in for her “annual” pap smear. She was told in England those are done every 5 years for a woman her age. That way they catch 78 percent of the problem. My wife very articulately explained that she was in the other 22 percent, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. The health care you receive is determined by government functionaries, not doctors. – The quality of the doctors goes down. The National Health Service doctors are not the brightest or the best. That distinction goes to the medical “consultants” and they choose to be addressed as “Mister” rather than “Doctor.” The majority of the patients in a “consultant” practice are those with private insurance. Name any other U.S. government program, which has improved service and contained cost. Why would any sane person want to put their health care in government hands?” – Barry Isaacs, Mendon, VT ‘Evergreen (Today’s Quote)’ “There is but one defensible social ideal, and that is a world in which every individual is free to work out the inner impulses of the Spirit, without aggression on his part or interference on the part of others. A state which accomplished this simple, primal duty, the protection of all its citizens, would accomplish something greater than has yet been historically recorded, and something which no state, preoccupied with illegitimate and paternalistic activities, is ever likely to accomplish.” – Hanford Henderson ”See Web site” https://www.grassrootinstitute.org ”for further information. Join its efforts at “Nurturing the rights and responsibilities of the individual in a civil society. …” or email or call Grassroot of Hawaii Institute President Richard O. Rowland at mailto:grassroot@hawaii.rr.com or (808) 487-4959.”
Grassroot Perspective – Jan. 6, 2003
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