Hanging out the shingle...

Once upon a time (so I'm told), doctors not only worked out of their homes but made house calls. The doctors knew everyone in town, especially the younger people since they helped deliver them. If you were short on money, a basket of eggs or some homemade bread worked as payment until you were flush again.

I'm not entirely sure when this ceased to be, but now insurance companies and lawyers have gotten into the middle of the doctor-patient relationship. I was informed of my PCP's resignation for family reasons via form letter, but at least that was better than finding out by accident my health insurance changed my dental insurance without telling me.

The following two stories reminded me the conceit of small town doctoring is still out there, whether you are in the big city or the country.

CNN profiled the Moore family in Lexington, Ky. Like their philanthropic father before them, three of the Moore brothers are doctors and provide free outpatient surgical care for the uninsured on the third Sunday of every month. The Moore brothers have treated over 3100 people since starting their free services in 2005. On an average Sunday, they care for 25-30 patients with the help of volunteer doctors and nurses.

Dan Ivankovich is the Lone Ranger of service-oriented docs. The seven foot-tall, blues-playing, head-to-toe leather-wearing Chicagoan orthopedic surgeon does over 800 surgeries a year, nearly all for patients living below the poverty line. One of his quotes from this CBS News video sums it up perfectly - "You see a child that's crippled. You see a 50 year-old in wheelchair, and I can fix it. Why wouldn't I?"

(Photo courtesy of CBS News)

One year later...

Hi everyone. Just a quick message this afternoon. It snuck up on me, but today is my blog's one year birthday.

My little corner of the Interwebs has changed quite a bit in the last 365 days, and I'd like to think for the better.

A lot of that is due to you. Thank you for the comments - both over email and in the comments section of the posts - as well as for the story ideas. :)

I hope you've enjoyed reading my happy thoughts as much as I've enjoyed (and benefited from) writing them.

I'll be back tomorrow with actual links, but for today I just wanted to say thank you. :)

Pop! goes the weasel...

The rise of social networking gave birth to flash mobs. The next generation of raves (and the next-next generation of '60s Happenings), flash mobs organize on Facebook or Twitter or through email; all the participants show up at a given place at the given time and do whatever activity was planned. This YouTube video of a crowd of Romans singing a song from "Glee" in a mall is proof that, while usually benign, flash mobs are also usually a little pointless.

However, the New York Times Magazine profiled a group called a "crop mob" that is actually very handy. Run on the same premise as a flash mob, crop mobs mobilize to aid young, small farmers in getting specific tasks done. Forty to 50 20-somethings gather at the chosen farm for a day to box thousands of pounds of produce or prep greenhouses or even to clear rocks and brush from a field. The volunteers focus on building a community, and the only thing it costs the farmer is lunch.

Something akin to the flash mob but is decidedly more bourgeois is the pop up. Be it a store or a restaurant, the new trend in launching a business or testing out its feasibility is to "pop up" in someone else's spot. Practically always unannounced and often changing spots nightly, the pop up appeals to those who aspire to be "in the know." The LA Times published an article on the rules for finding pop ups as well as highlighting some of the more popular ones in New York. Hint: to find 'em, you gotta follow 'em. Score another for social networking...

(Photo courtesy of The New York Times Magazine)

The coolest women you've probably never heard of...

Someone once said history is written by the winners. I'd like to make a minor correction - it is written by the winning side's major players. Nearly all of the "little people" involved in the big events get lost in the chronological shuffle. All three of my stories today examine the smaller players in macro themes or events.

A 12 year-old Chilean girl saved hundreds of her countrymen and women when she sounded a town alarm just before the tsunami struck her archipelago. The Latin American Herald Tribune reported on Martina Maturana, who learned of the earthquake from her grandfather who lived on the mainland. Just before the ensuing wave hit Robinson Crusoe Island, Maturana ran to the town square, rang the gong to wake up the residents and get them to move to higher ground.

Forbes posted an article on 20 inspiring women to follow on Twitter. I'm on Twitter, but I've yet to see the usefulness of it. I follow a few witty people, but the whole thing is a bit lackluster to me. Perhaps with the addition of a few of these women, I will find the site more relevant to real life. The article highlights women who have made positive contributions to the discussion of race, gender equality in traditionally male fields, healthy eating habits for children and space travel.

Speaking of gender equality in traditionally male fields, Rick Reilly has a column on ESPN.com profiling Kelly Kulick. Featured on ESPN and still don't know who she is? You're not alone. Kulick became the first woman to win a men's Professional Bowling Association tour title, and the only attention she's gotten over it was a free hair coloring at a local salon. Her achievement has never happened in the history of ball sports, and yet I don't remember a mention of it anywhere when it happened.

(Photo courtesy of ESPN.com)

Moneyball...

Michael M. Lewis wrote the 2003 book of the same title about the Oakland Athletics, who used close analysis of statistics to help itself assemble competitive teams despite a financial disadvantage.

While that may be a very tiny niche - no one I know personally needs to assemble a professional baseball team, let alone do it on a "budget" - but the idea speaks to the general population. Most citizens of the US are not Rockefellers or Vanderbilts. We have to do a lot on a little. And it would, probably, serve us well if we used researched facts to do it.

Lewis is back with another money-focused book. An excerpt of it is published in this month's issue of Vanity Fair. It's incredibly long - eight web pages - but the story he tells of Mike Burry is fascinating. Burry is one of the few men in America, and possibly the world, who saw the sub-prime mortgage crisis and subsequent economic collapse coming. And due to a market wrinkle he invented, he made a lot of people rich.

The stock market is a funny creature. Some might call it a terrible beast when it doesn't go their way, but it seems to me, in all my limited knowledge of it, that you can really do something if you have the guts to ride it out.

Grace Groner sat on an $180 investment made in 1935 and turned it into a $7 million gift to her alma mater on her death. A survivor of the original Great Depression, Groner lived frugally her entire life. According to the Chicago Tribune, when she died at 100, Groner left a tiny house with a few pieces of furniture and a fortune nearly no one knew she had. She had made a small bequest to her college and had funded anonymous charitable gifts in the past, but the president of Lake Forest College was stunned when he received word of the donation.

Perhaps it is the Midwest monetary restraint that served Groner and another world famous investor well. Warren Buffett has made billions by being a value investor - something touched on in the first story of this post - and buying up stocks from incredibly undervalued companies while those stocks are cheap. Once the company "makes it," Buffett's portfolio shows an often significant bump. A lot of people have tried to imitate him, but no one has ever really succeeded. Nevertheless, Yahoo! has posted five rules that Buffett uses to guide his own investing. While I have no idea how I would use them, they do seem to make a great deal of sense.

Good news from where?...

A week or so ago, I wanted to do a post on good news out of the Middle East. I had a couple of stories that bordered on good news, but nothing I really felt strongly enough to post. So I scrapped it.

Today I'm trying again.

My first story was the tipping point for this second attempt. Google News hosted an AP story which profiles Abdullah Qazi, an Afghani immigrant to the United States who was frustrated by the lack of good news about his old country in his new one. He got sick of the suicide bombs, the fallen soldiers and families ripped apart and set up www.goodafghannews.com. Some of the headlines Qazi has up right now include the inauguration of a rebuilt runway, the on-going success of a campaign against opium, and the export of pomegranate juice.

Monsters and Critics, a site I have to admit I've never been to before reading the following story, posted a story on the Olympic women's alpine event. Columnist David Hein stuck around with dozens of other members of the international press between runs to talk to the second-to-last finisher - Iranian Marjan Kalhor. The 21 year-old was her country's flag bearer and is the first woman Iran has ever sent to the Winter Olympics.

Finally, WFIE 14 (out of who knows where) posted the AP story on a rare archaeological and biblical find. Two pieces of the Song of the Sea, a Jewish scroll from the "silent period," were reunited after centuries of separation. The 1300 year-old fragments make up the text of the song the Israelites sang after fleeing slavery in Egypt. Scholars are ecstatic to have the pieces together to give them a glimpse of the time between the third and 10th centuries, from which we have no extant writings.

Oh, the places you'll go...

Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Theodor Geisel took his readers to all sorts of magical, wonderful places inhabited by creatures only found in the imagination. The Cat in the Hat, the Lorax, Brown Bar-ba-loots, and Foo Foo the Snoo to name just a few (sorry, I had to).

March 2 is Geisel's birthday and this year he would have been 106 (Dr. Seuss died in 1991.). The National Education Association (NEA) has tied its Read Across America awareness and motivation program to this day, with educators and students from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. reading Dr. Seuss books and participating in Seussian activities.

The Christian Science Monitor has a brief article that outlines the NEA's program and gives a basic overview of Dr. Seuss and his works. I love his quote at the end...

In honor of Dr. Seuss, the Huffington Post has an article listing 15 of Theodor Geisel's more memorable quotes. Some of them I'm very familiar with, but I didn't realize he said them originally. My favorite just might be "I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!"

And finally, I would be remiss if I did not include a link to his website. Seussville.com is a great resource for all things Geisel, including a biography, resources, book catalog and fun music. There is a Dr. Seuss sculptural garden in western Massachusetts, created by his step-daughter, which I think I will visit once the plants reappear. You can check that out here. The sculptures are all bronze, but I want some nice greenery in the background of my photos. :)

(Photo courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor)