I can sympathize with your situation. But, just for a moment, put yourself on the other side of the desk. I recently found out I have cancer. I'm sick, and I'm facing months of grueling treatments. I was laid off from my job a couple of months ago, so I'm struggling to afford these medical treatments. And I'm spending all my time trying to get clear answers from people about my treatment. Whether it's doctors who are too busy to answer my questions, or insurance representatives whose only answer is "I'll get back to you", or collections departments who call me up and harass me for payments, even though I've never gotten a bill yet - it's an endless slog of phone calls, letters and paperwork. Instead of focusing on getting well, I'm focusing on "working the system".

I don't blame you personally for this situation, but I do blame your profession. If doctors had gotten behind some kind of health care reform, it probably would have passed. I don't necessarily mean "socialized medicine" - just some kind of streamlined system that covers everyone without this endless fight to get treatment covered. Even that would be an improvement. But for years, doctors fought health care reform. They're a significant part of the reason we ended up with this messed up system. Suddenly, doctors are realizing that they're caught in the clutches of the insurance industry as much as the patients are, and they're finally speaking out about it - but I hope you (and your fellow doctors) will do more than complain about long hours when (or if) we get a chance at some kind of health care reform in the next few years.

You might even get better working conditions out of it.

I don't understand why stem cell research is being targeted in particular. Why not target fertility treatments, where embryos are often discarded (or at the very least, stuck in a freezer until they're no longer viable, which gives you the same result). The number of embryos affected by fertility clinics is much higher.

The difference? Joe and Jane Republican don't necessarily care what happens in some research lab far away, but they do care if they want to have a baby and have to go to a fertility doctor. It's easier to target creepy scientists in a lab than it is to target that nice lady at church who just wants a baby.

I've been watching the Olympic TV coverage daily since the games began, and I've only heard one or two mentions of Bolt's "chest pounding". The commentators commented on it at the time of the race, and I might have heard Costas talk about it once after that, but since then - nothing. When Bolt was running in the relay, the comments from the booth were glowing - talking about how Bolt was the greatest runner of his generation, and how he deserved to be mentioned next to Carl Lewis and other legendary runners. Not one word about this "scandal". (I may have missed some mention of it while I was fast forwarding through commercials, but it definitely wasn't a major issue when Bolt ran in other events.)

If you go by the actual Olympic coverage, it was a minor incident, quickly blown over. But the blogs and news articles (like Salon) have puffed it up into a "scandal".

It has been surprisingly difficult to get any information about the diving finals, other than the scores. I was watching the diving final last night when my cable box decided to reset itself. I missed the last round, including Wilkinson's last dive as well as the dives from the leaders. I figured it would be shown during NBC's 2 am replay, but no, they skipped it in favor of more beach volleyball. So I went online looking for video, pictures, anything - I haven't been able to find it.

Most of these things sound a bit silly to me, or would be very difficult to implement. However, I was recently in the hospital, and I got a variety of reactions when I listed a friend as the person I wanted as my first contact person. (The person that the hospital is allowed to talk to, under HIPAA rules.) I had to go through all these papers with half a dozen different nurses, administrators, etc. Some of them had no problem with my designating a friend for that role. But others made a big fuss - "It has to be a FAMILY member. You have to put down what RELATIONSHIP you have with this person and friend doesn't count. Don't you have a FAMILY member you can list instead?" My only family is a distant aunt who lives hundreds of miles away. Wouldn't it be better to designate a friend who is nearby? In the end, I put down the aunt as well as the friend, just to get through it and stop the arguments, and in the end, neither one of them was able to be there so it didn't matter anyway.

But there should be an option to list a friend as the designated person on your hospital forms. Why should a distant relative you only talk to once a year be given priority over a friend you see all the time?