Leggo my emo

I started out to write a self-analytical bit about my own failures and how to amend them, and then realized that this kind of journaling is one of said failures. So you just read a meta-failure.

I'm taking a week off in May, partly to go up to SF to see Gang of Four on the 2nd, but generally to clear my head if possible. I hope to spend a couple of days idling on the Central Coast in the SLO area, and otherwise no idea. I should go out in the desert and photograph the wildflowers, as they're exceptional this year. Suggestions welcome. No, I'm not going up to Portland! I don't have enough time for that if I'm going to do anything else.

Last night as I was looking up at the wind slapping the palm trees around I realized that I need trees around me. If I don't have a tree break occasionally I get unhappy. What's that about, I wonder?

general advisory to southern californians (healthcare)

City of Angeles Medical Center in L.A. and Kindred Hospital in La Mirada failed their JCAHO accreditation.

Failing "Joint" means you're not really a hospital any more. It also means that patients should not go there. The medical equivalent of warm potato salad and cockroaches in the root beer is going on, folks.

I worked at a hospital and went through accreditation with "the Joint". It's not easy to get a perfect score, but not passing is bad. As in crossing the streams bad.

Consider yourselves warned.

News story is here ( behind the cut )

As if we didn't have enough evidence

Ralph Nader is a waste of skin.

Editorial advisory: SchiavoFilter.

I wish for all the cable news guys and self promoters and circus barkers and junior pundits and demagogues and craven opportunists with opinions on this to have feeding tubes inserted deep, deep into them. The horrors of a modern death are enough without all this braying hypocrisy.

Healthcare update II, for everyone

Dump the antibacterial wipes, the no-water gel, the gimmicky crap, and just wash your hands. Seriously.

Lyrics du jour: It Says Here

It says here that the unions will never learn
It says here that the economy is on the upturn
And it says here we should be proud
That we are free
And our free press reflects our democracy

Those braying voices on the right of the house
Are echoed down the street of shame
Where politics mix with bingo and tits
In a strictly money and numbers game

Where they offer you a feature
On stockings and suspenders
Next to a call for stiffer penalties for sex offenders

It says here that this year’s prince is born
It says here do you ever wish
That you were better informed
And it says here that we can only stop the rot
With a large dose of law and order
And a touch of the short sharp shock

If this does not reflect you view you should understand
That those who own the papers also own this land
And they’d rather you believe
In coronation street capers
In the war of circulation, it sells newspapers
Could it be an infringement
Of the freedom of the press
To print pictures of women in states of undress

When you wake up to the fact
That you paper is tory
Just remember, there are two sides to every story

—Billy Bragg

The wheels on the bus go round and round

Float On (Kidz Bop) (4.9 MB mp3). Just for you, Liam!