What has forty heads and two teeth…..? The front row at a Merle Haggard concert.
Merle is a color combination in dogs’ coats. It is a solid base color (usually red/brown or black) with lighter blue/gray or reddish patches, which gives a mottled or uneven speckled effect. Although most breeds that can have merle coats also typically have white markings (such as around the neck, under the belly, and so on), and often tan points (typically between the white and the darker parts of the coat), these are separate colors from the merle; some dogs do appear completely merled with no white or tan markings.
So we now have a dappled dachshund and a regular one and just can’t come to terms on a name. I love Baby Girl for the girl…and then for the boy…Longfellow, Playboy, Patches, Shutlz, Napoleon…. and then I learn today from a friend of my son that merle means (essentially) dappled. Merle…
I respect Merle Haggard…that song Big City (If you have never heard it… I love it and I as a rule hate country..but Merle is the real deal my friend)… Merle it might be… but I am the voice of one and there is heavy opposition to my suggestions….what do I know….
I’m tired of this dirty old city.
Entirely too much work and never enough
play.
And I’m tired of these dirty old sidewalks.
Think I’ll walk off my
steady job today.
Turn me
loose, set me free, somewhere in the middle of Montana.
And gimme all I got comin’ to
me,
And keep your
retirement and your so called social security.
Big City turn me loose
and set me free.
Been working everyday since I was twenty.
Haven’t got
a thing to show for anything I’ve done.
There’s folks who never work and
they’ve got plenty.
Think it’s time some guys like me had some
fun.
Turn me loose, set me free, somewhere in the middle of
Montana.
And gimme all I got comin’ to me,
And keep your retirement and
your so called social security.
Big City turn me loose and set me free.
Who is USPSTF? Think Otis Brawley. Who would you trust more with your care or the care of a loved one…a professor or your local family doctor?
The term Ivory Tower originates in the Biblical Song of Solomon (7,4), and was later used as an epithet for Mary.
From the 19th century it has been used to designate a world or atmosphere where intellectuals engage in pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life. As such, it usually carries pejorative connotations of a wilful disconnect from the everyday world; esoteric, over-specialized, or even useless research; and academic elitism, if not outright condescension. In American English usage it is a shorthand for academia or the university, particularly departments of the humanities.
Look at the list of “doctors” who are making “patient care decisions.” Do you see that any of them are actually out in the real world treating real patients? All institutional based, probably career academicians, making recommendations with a tilt to whats best for “the masses” and not the average patient that shows in the doctor’s office seeking care.
Hint…the USPSTF internet sites ends with- .gov and is linked to the HHS i.e. Obamacare. Don’t make this a political statement. It is what it is…this is epidemiology stuff and on the same page as all the stuff spouted out by Otis Brawley and the American Cancer Society for years. Now they have a platform in the name of the new National Healthcare Program and this is the incremental implementation of the policies you can come to expect from Nationalize Health Care.
The very people who voted for this and promote this stuff are the very people who when it is them or loved one….will elect to do for them what we are doing now and not what will be proposed under a HHS health care program.
As my mother would say…”A word to the wise is sufficient.”
Prostate Diaries 
The USPSTF may have just done more for prostate cancer (PCa) than the rest of us in the UK have done over the last 20 years BUT not in the way their committee had hoped. Jack is right in saying that if anyone of the Task Forces team were affected by PCa they would be wanting to monitor the disease which incidentaly happens to use the PSA test as a monitoring device!!
In the UK just as in the USA we are working towards more patient involvement in decision making about the way they are treated ‘No decision about me without me’. I just wonder how many men this Task Force consulted and how many patients are part of the decision team? Just because we men living with PCa are not medical does not necassarily mean we do not have a valid opinion.
So a big UK thank you to this USPSTF for scoring a massive own goal we men and our families will not allow you to take away our chance of a cure when this disease strikes us. I am looking forward to the PCa conference in London 13th/14th October where I am sure this issue will take centre stage.
Keith
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