The 10th Justice

Both the New York Times and the Washington Post have front page articles about the Mueller investigation. Hopefully, this means it is coming to a close. Hopefully Mueller's report and indictments will bring about the expulsion of Trump from the presidency. In America we have the rule of law. Before someone is convicted of a crime they are given due process meaning they have the right to a fair trial before their peers. Trump deserves this. However, anyone who has followed the story and has any belief in the old saying 'where there is smoke, there's fire' knows in their heart that Trump is a criminal. Remember the house deal in Florida? Trump sold a house worth $40 million to a Russian oligarch for $100 million. Trump had just gone through bankruptcy and needed money. Some came his way. What a coincidence. Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager briefly, was associated with the defunct Bank of Cyprus, owned by wealthy Russians and used for money laundering. This ...

Perhaps our national political divide is not as serious as it seems. Perhaps it is a natural phenomenon accentuated by politics. We own two houses: one in the city and one we call 'the cabin' in the country. Recently we have been spending more time in the country. The traffic is less. Outside is quiet and tree-filled. The hour to hour life is slower and more measured, if not as lively with continuous distractions of talks with neighbors, email, texts, newspapers. We don't have TV either place and limited internet at the cabin. At the cabin we don’t get as good cheeses as in the city, nor as good bread or wine, nor do we have the choice of dozens of fine restaurants, which we seldom take advantage of anyway, so that is not a great loss. This morning while sitting in bed in my country house, I read Paul Krugman’s article about the rural-metropolitan political divide in our country. Immediately I was reminded of the Aesop fable of the city mouse and the country mouse, so ...

First, a couple months ago I wrote an essay titled "Illness as Memory". Originally, I thought the idea was so compelling that it should be a book, but the energy to do the research for a project that big has not welled up in me, yet. But the idea is alive. Today, on the website QuantaMagazine this article appeared: https://www.quantamagazine.org/stem-cells-remember-tissues-past-injuries-20181112/. Stem cells may have memories of previous injuries and how to fix them. These memories may give rise to a variety of autoimmune diseases.  If my essay interested you, I suggest you take a look at this link. Another theme in several of my posts has been the harm done to the profession of medicine by business people. In a recent New Yorker article, Atul Gawande, writes about the electronic medical record program EPIC. Here is the link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/12/why-doctors-hate-their-computers. And here is my take on this issue. But first I want to back up a...

On the government website concerning the laws about truth in advertising it says: When consumers see or hear an advertisement, whether it’s on the Internet, radio or television, or anywhere else, federal law says that ad must be truthful, not misleading, and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence. What constitutes an ad? According to the website of legal definitions: Advertising is the act or practice of attracting public notice and attention.  So where is the Federal Trade Commission when we need them? The newspapers have been filled with evidence of false claims that are attempting to attract the attention of voters. Anyone who claims that politics is not a business needs to explain the enormous amounts of money that are being spent in electing officials who will carry out an agenda helpful to donors. Where do we see false claims that are attempting to attract our attention. Well, let's start at the top. Trump says things that are false virtually everyday. Accor...

As a doctor I am prescribing a new therapeutic tool to counteract the mental havoc caused by Trump: the book These Truths by Jill Lepore. Dr. Lepore is a chaired professor of American history at Harvard and a staff writer for The New Yorker. These Truths is a narrative history of the United States written like one of those tremendously engaging New Yorker articles about a subject you never even thought about but the writing is so powerful it pulls you so deeply into the world of orchids or artisanal iron work construction that you want to change careers. Except These Truths is nine hundred pages long. There are a hundred pages of notes, however, as support and amplification of any subject that comes up. That in itself is such a pleasant change from Trump who, not only lies about whatever suits him, offer no supporting evidence for anything he says, lies or not. These Truths calmed me down. To begin with, the Trump/populism thing has happened many times in this country and our dem...

My initial essay on this subject I did not publish. Here is my summary today, a few days later, after I have talked to a lot of people, read do news articles and thought about it a little. The Democrats took over the House. They can now set the agenda for their committees, including the Judicial committee, getting rid of Grassley, who had nothing to say but partisan cliches. This will give them some power and, more importantly, a voice. They will have the power to investigate whatever they want but I hope they use it sparingly. We have an ongoing investigation by Mueller. My suggestion is that they do whatever they can to protect him, that they use his report as the basis for action, and that they focus on legislation that is needed such as their initial statement that they might pass a bill to repair our country's infrastructure. More women were elected to Congress than ever before. When it is 50/50 with men it will be even better. In Africa, charitable organizations ended up ...

After reading Andrew Sullivan's essay in New York Magazine today I should just post the link and shut up. Here it is: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/andrew-sullivan-can-the-republic-strike-back.html. Just a few words... It's election day and we all need to get out and vote. And sadly vote Democratic . Never before have I felt that generalizing an election was the correct thing to do. Always before voting was about electing the best candidate, not elect the best party. But now it is. The Republican Party has failed. Their failure is threatening both our democracy and constitution but our nation as a civilized country. What have they failed at? Doing their job. First they failed to consider legislation proposed by Obama and simply voted against everything he suggested. Then they failed to play by the rules and changed the rules of governing to give their slight majority an advantage in confirming a judicial system that was heavily swayed to the right than upholding...

Yesterday, as a friend and I were doing one of our urban walks up Clinton Street in southeast Portland we came to Clinton Street Video with a note taped to the door saying they were closing. This is perhaps the last video in Portland. Movie Madness has moved to its non-profit status at the Hollywood Theater where its massive collection will remain intact for those of us who like to wander the shelves and look for films we had forgotten or never knew existed. This is particularly moving to me, since my wife and I and my wife's brother owned a wonderful video store in Portland. It is gone now, a victim of streaming, owner fatigue, and Portland's high rents. We owned Trilogy Video in Portland. Gone, but for me, never forgotten. The last day it was open, the day of the sale, the line of movie buffs was a block long. The current owner for whom I volunteered for free rentals, asked me to monitor the door and let in twenty-five people at a time. There wasn't much floor space bec...