There’s a Wiki Online to Help Coordinate Information on Hurricane Gustav

Thanks to a tweet on Twitter by Beth Kanter (www.bethkanter.org/) – “a trainer, coach, and consultant to nonprofits in the area of effective technology use” – I learned the URL for the coordination of information on Hurricane Gustav – www.gustavwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page – that includes the need for volunteers to edit a page of the wiki.

The beginning of this wiki home page reads:

This is the wiki for information relating to Hurricane Gustav and its approach to the northern Gulf coast. It's intended to be centralized site for links to information everywhere else on the web; please publicize it far and wide. Information will be moved here as time progresses from the similar wiki built during and after Hurricane Katrina's landfall 3 years ago.

(Note: The definition of a wiki according to www.wikipedia.org is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content.)

Please pass along this information wherever you can.

Technorati Tags:
Hurricane Gustav, Beth Kanter, Twitter, www.wikipedia.org, do-gooder, Scrooge

Buyer Beware: Exercise Caution When Getting Estate Planning/Tax Advice From a Newspaper (Even The Wall Street Journal)

I was pleased to see the article by Karen Blumenthal titled “It’s an Election Year: Is Your Will Updated?” on the front-page of the Personal Journal section of the August 27^th Wall Street Journal.

My new company Miller Mosaic, LLC has just launched the website www.estateplanningforyou.com to help people avoid probate by explaining that a living trust is needed in addition to a will. Thus I was really pleased that the Journal was getting the word out about this important estate planning subject.

Can you imagine my surprise when I read the entire Journal article only to find no mention of a living trust? In other words, if you read the Journal article and did everything advised in the article, all you would have is a will.

AND ONLY HAVING A WILL MEANS THAT YOUR ESTATE HAS TO GO THROUGH PROBATE.

The information in the Journal is WRONG because only having a will and thus making your estate go through probate can create major problems for your family. Don’t let this happen!

Check out the brief free video at www.estateplanningforyou.com to learn why you need a living trust in addition to a will to save your estate from going through probate.

Technorati Tags:
Estate planning, will, living trust, Wall Street Journal, WSJ, Miller Mosaic LLC, do-gooder, Scrooge, avoid probate

Blogging: A Potentially Potent Way to Change the World for the Better

Thanks to my younger daughter sending me the link to The Buzz Bin (the blog of Livingston Communications at www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/), I read a post about blogs that promote good deeds:

“A year ago there were about 15 notable nonprofit and philanthropy bloggers. Today dozens of voices regularly discuss community and global change, often in relation to the role of the social Web,” this post noted.

There followed a link to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Give & Take roundup of blogs about the nonprofit world at http://philanthropy.com/giveandtake/.

I thought the Livingston blog post rather academic in tone. (I’m reading NOW IS GONE – the book Geoff Livingston wrote with Brian Solis – and I have the same reaction to the writing in the book). Yet I thought some blog posts found on Give & Take were quite interesting – and the blog posts have info to help people who donate to charities as well as people who run charities.

Take a look at http://philanthropy.com/giveandtake/ – you just may find yourself inspired to do good deeds.

Technorati Tags:
Geoff Livingston, Brian Solis, Chronicle of Philanthropy, do-gooder, Scrooge

What's Inside Your Inhaler? New Regulations Go Into Effect January 1st

According to Nancy Sander, president and founder of Allergy & Asthma Network Mothers of Asthmatics (AANMA), between now and December 31 of this year "millions of patients will need to obtain a new prescription for a non-CRC bronchodilator inhaler. They will need new instructions for using the inhaler that include inhalation technique, cleaning, priming and when to use it."

The AANMA is trying to get the word out that more than 50,000 new prescriptions must be written before the end of this year. And AANMA has asked that the above flier be printed out and placed in public places.

To learn more and to get copies of the flyer, go to www.breatherville.org/pharmacy/ph_mdi_transition.htm.

Technorati Tags:
Nancy Sander, AANMA, allergies, asthma, bronchodilators, do-gooder, Scrooge

Holy Cow! Microsoft Doesn’t Know the Difference Between Young and Old

My younger daughter handed me the front-page of the August 21^st Wall Street Journal and asked “What’s funny about this article?”

The article in question was “Microsoft Enlists Jerry Seinfeld In Its Ad Battle Against Apple” by Suzanne Vrancia and Robert A.Guth. It wasn’t the title that was funny; it was the lead paragraph:

Microsoft Corp., weary of being cast as a stodgy oldster by Apple Inc.’s advertising, is turning for help to Jerry Seinfeld.

I thought for a second and replied: “What’s funny is that Jerry Seinfeld is old. If Microsoft wanted a younger image, why not get a young up-and-coming comic?”

Exactly. And apparently Seinfeld will appear in ads with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates “and receive about $10 million for the work.”

I immediately looked up the ages of Seinfeld and Gates. Seinfeld turned 54 in April and Gates will turn 53 in October. Did Gates want someone his own age standing next to him so people wouldn’t wonder at the boy genius all grown-up? Or did the old stuffed shirts of Microsoft’s new advertising agency have no ideas for younger yet well-known comics?

Note to advertising agency: Spending $10 million for an aging comic is not the best use of Microsoft’s funds. How about $4 million for a younger yet well-known comic and let Microsoft spend the remaining $6 million on getting the Windows Vista system to work decently?

Technorati Tags:
Microsoft, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Gates, Wall Street Journal, WSJ, Windows Vista, do-gooder, Scrooge, Apple

Showmethereel.com Is Featured on SouthwestBlend.com’s “Champagne Sundays”

I listened to an interview of my older daughter, founder of www.Showmethereel.com, as a featured guest on SouthwestBlend.com’s “Champagne Sundays” online radio show that aired live on August 17^th.

If you’re interested in learning about Showmethereel.com’s innovative approach to the entertainment industry, click on the following link for the page to my daughter’s “Champagne Sundays” interview – http://tinyurl.com/6rgawr. To hear just her interview – double click the play button below her picture.

Then later I talked with Lisa Smith, co-host of “Champagne Sundays,” as I’m scheduled to be on the show October 19^th talking about my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT.

Lisa and I had a great time laughing about a new radio show Lisa is planning with her mother – a show about ranting. I told Lisa I was really up for such a radio show. Sign me up! I said.

And, in the meantime, check out www.SouthwestBlend.com. This online magazine covers Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Mexico and features Southwest travel, music, food, events, history, fashion, news and more.

Technorati Tags:
www.showmethereel.com, www.SouthwestBlend.com,

Technology Has Its Dark Side

I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the steps for the Miller Mosaic site www.estateplanningforyou.com to utilize the functions of 1ShoppingCart.

Every single screen option in 1ShoppingCart has multiple decision choices and, while the support staff is quite helpful, the staff is not able to tell me which one of two choices is the better choice for me.

I even unsuccessfully tried to find an ebook to explain the decisions, although someone on Twitter did point me to YouTube videos that I’ll watch.

Why bother learning this new terrain? Because the technology when hooked up correctly will automatically fulfill functions that used to be done by hand. Thus, when I am eventually successful, this will be a tremendous system to have on www.estateplanningforyou.com.

Meanwhile, after struggling with this new learning challenge, I participated in a call with MaryPat Kavanagh, www.queenofmarketing.com, about utilizing the new Facebook layout. And, again, while there are all kinds of nifty things available, the things are only nifty if you can actually do them.

I understand how some people decide to totally stay out of the social media and ecommerce spaces on the internet. And sometimes, when my mind is exhausted by these new challenges, I wish I had never started.

Then I regain my energy and realize that this is the future. I’d rather be learning from the innovators than wait to be dragged screaming into this brave new world.

Technorati Tags:
MaryPat Kavanagh, www.queenofmarketing.com, www.estateplanningforyou.com, 1ShoppingCart, Facebook, do-gooder, Scrooge, YouTube

Read About a Combat Veteran and Support Operation Soldier Care

If you usually don’t read my Mrs. Lieutenant blog posts, I urge you to read this one at http://tinyurl.com/5wtace. It’s a compelling story of someone risking his life to “do good.”

And the post is also a request to help others who are “doing good” by being in harm’s way.

Technorati Tags:
Mrs. Lieutenant, Operation Soldier Care, combat veteran, do-gooder, Scrooge

Undiagnosed Learning Disability Is Subplot on Lifetime TV’s ARMY WIVES

I’m always on the look-out for learning disabilities that haven’t been diagnosed. A few years ago I diagnosed ADD in a 10^th –grade friend of the family based on something he said to me. (“I don’t know why I didn’t study for my history exam – I love history.”)

The boy’s younger sister had already been diagnosed with ADD. But because he didn’t present the same as his sister, his went undetected until his parents had him tested after I gently suggested this to them.

Which is why I was pleased that, in episode 10 of Season 2 of Lifetime TV’s ARMY WIVES, Roxy was told by Roland, who’s teaching a GED course, the reason she failed the practice exam even though she knew the material. It was because she had a learning disability that interfered with transferring her knowledge to a written test. Roland told her she wasn’t dumb; in fact, she was smart. She just needed to take the test orally.

True, this reveal was not nearly as compelling as the reveal when fans of THE COSBY SHOW found out along with Theo, when he was already in college, that he had a learning disability that interfered with his test taking. (My tears flowed when Vanessa told her father he should be sorry for all the times he ragged on Theo about his grades.) Or in PUNKY BREWSTER when a 12-year-old couldn’t read the poison antidote instructions that could save her younger brother.

In case you believe that you may have an undiagnosed learning disability, there’s a book that may speak to you. Dr. Mel Levine’s A MIND AT A TIME is a treasure trove of explanations of numerous areas of the brain that can affect things that we do (or can’t do).

The author’s writing style is quite dense so you have to be determined to plow through the material and extract the relevant information. Yet the result may be worth the work, especially if you discover some thing or things that you may have been unfairly beating yourself up about all your life.

Technorati Tags:
Mel Levine, A Mind at a Time, learning disabilities, Lifetime TV, ARMY WIVES, THE COSBY SHOW, PUNKY BREWSTER, do-gooder, Scrooge

OPERATION SOLDIER CARE HAS MATCHING SPONSOR TO SUPPORT OUR TROOPS

August is in full force through the U.S. with record heat waves keeping people inside in front of their air conditioners.

Imagine, then, how hot and uncomfortable U.S. men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan must be! And also imagine how nice it would be for them to receive sun/skin care products that can make their lives a tad easier.

Thanks to Trish Forant of www.eMailOurMilitary.com and Nancy Sutherland, sales director of Mary Kay, OPERATION SOLDIER CARE is providing sun/skin care products to deployed service members to help relieve the ravages of a desert combat tour.

What started as a smaller project has now grown to a larger one due to Nancy’s offer to match all contributions up to $5,000. This is, in effect, a 2-for-1 offer where every purchased Mary Kay gift set results in Nancy buying a matching second gift set.

Show support for our deployed troops by stepping up to the plate and buying Mary Kay gift sets. Click on this link to Nancy’s Mary Kay website to buy the gift sets of satin hand pampering -- http://tinyurl.com/5dmwq4. After putting in the number of sets, put OPERATION SOLDIER CARE in the comment section at checkout and your gifts will be sent directly to the soldiers.

It’s that easy! So click on http://tinyurl.com/5dmwq4 now because this troop support project ends August 18.

And to encourage you to buy multiple gift sets, the top five biggest individual donors will receive a copy of the new book MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL by Phyllis Zimbler Miller and an eMail Our Military 15-oz. ceramic coffee mug.

Why not consider this as a great summer project for scouts or camps to pitch in to help our troops? Let’s show them that we care!

Operation Soldier Care, www.emailourmilitary.com, Nancy Sutherland, Trish Forant, Mary Kay, Mrs. Lieutenant, do-gooder, Scrooge

Reliving the 1970s with Derogatory Media Portrayals of Women and Limiting Reproductive Freedom

Last week on Twitter someone drew attention to a new BMW ad that would have been right at home in the mid-70s. That was the time when I taught newswriting classes at Temple University Center City and had a large collection of newspaper articles and ads that featured derogatory portrayals of women. I tweeted that I’d already been part of this battle. Did we really have to fight it again?

And then right on the heels of that throw-back to the un-liberated ‘70s comes the July 31^st article by Stephanie Simon in The Wall Street Journal titled “Treating the Pill as Abortion, Draft Regulation Stirs Debate.”

Apparently there is a draft regulation circulating within the Department of Health and Human Services that “treats most birth-control pills and intrauterine devices as abortion because they can work by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus. The regulation considers that destroying ‘the life of a human being.’”

I can’t even write about this topic because it makes me so angry. Again, the battle for women to have control over their reproductive organs has already been fought. Must it really be fought again?

On Sunday night I saw the new Batman movie THE DARK KNIGHT. Part-way through the endless violence sequences I asked myself what makes this movie so popular at the box office. Why do so many people want to see larger-than-life characters being brutally vicious to each other? And we call this entertainment.

I’ve just reviewed the military spouse winning essays of the “Tell-Your-Own-Story” contest that I co-sponsored with YourMilitary.com in connection with Lifetime TV’s ARMY WIVES series. Several of the essays described the difficulties when a spouse is deployed. And as I write this post I’m also in an email conversation with a deployed National Guard member.

The juxtaposition of fake violence and real violence seems surreal, as does returning to the ‘70s with its derogatory media portrayals of women and the limiting of reproductive freedom.

Technorati Tags:
Scrooge, do-gooder, Wall Street Journal, WSJ, Stephanie Simon, BMW, Twitter, The Dark Knight, Batman movie, YourMilitary.com, Lifetime TV, Army Wives

LA Earthquake: Emergency Communication Advice

This morning my younger daughter got a big surprise for her 25^th birthday today – a 5.8 earthquake in Los Angeles. After we stood under a door frame (the old earthquake advice but possibly not the new earthquake advice), we both got on Twitter and tweeted the news.

One person who also tweeted update info was John Taylor, senior manager, public affairs at Sprint Nextel Corp. Below I’ve combined some of the individual tweets he sent after the earthquake with helpful advice about communicating with people in LA:

Can’t use your cell phone in LA post-quake? Don’t assume your cell carrier is at fault. Often landlines are out, which blocks wireless calls.

Just heard that Sprint and Nextel networks are okay in LA, but local telecom AT&T is getting swamped, which would block all wireless carriers.

In addition to Nextel Direct Connect, which bypasses AT&T and other landline networks, try text messaging to get through to loved ones in LA.

Also try Direct Talk. Like Direct Connect, but allows you to walkie-talkie independent of Nextel up to six miles. New Orleans PD used it during Katrina.

To ensure that public safety can use AT&T’s network, email or text people in LA instead. Let fire and police help those in need.

Great blog post by LA Fire Dept on what to do in quake aftermath. Stay off phones so public safety can use lines. http://tinyurl.com/6m46os

AP reports that California Office of Emergency Services has asked SoCal residents to stop land and cell phone use. http://tinyurl.com/6nufjt

Thanks, John, for all your helpful advice today.

Technorati Tags:
Los Angeles, earthquake, John Taylor, Sprint, Nextel, do-gooder, Scrooge

TV Reviewer Dorothy Rabinowitz Goes Way Off the Mark about THE CLOSER and SAVING GRACE

I usually agree with Dorothy Rabinowitz’s television column in The Wall Street Journal. But her July 25^th column was way off the mark.

In the column she rags on the portrayal of Kyra Sedgwick as LAPD Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson (TNT’s THE CLOSER) and Holly Hunter as Detective Grace Hanadarko (TNT’s SAVING GRACE).

Full disclosure – I’m a big fan of THE CLOSER and have only seen the pilot episode of SAVING GRACE. But I’m also a former journalist who, in the mid-1970s when teaching newswriting at Temple University Center City, had a huge collection of obnoxious portrayals of women in news and feature articles, including a front-page example from The Wall Street Journal.

Therefore, what I have to say to Dorothy Rabinowitz is this: You should appreciate that women today get to be the crime-busting protagonist in action television dramas. Gone for the most part are the days when the women characters were just attractive sidekicks to the men busting down the doors and solving the crimes.

Thus the fact that Holly Hunter’s character can be “an alcoholic, a savage bully” means that fictional women have finally achieved some kind of equality with the fictional men on television.

That alone is a reason to celebrate, regardless of what Dorothy Rabinowitz thinks of the scripts of the writing staff of both shows.

Bravo TV’s Project Runway Season 5 Contestants are Losers

Project Runway is a favorite television show of mine even though I don’t know anything about fashion and don’t even care about fashion. But the creativity that most contestants exhibit in each challenge is so amazing that I’m hooked on the show. (I mean, really, making an outfit out of items from a grocery store!)

Thus, after watching the first two episodes of this new season, I am really annoyed at the contestants – they are such losers. Seriously, if you got picked to be a contestant for a show’s fifth season, wouldn’t you watch every single episode of all of the four previous seasons to pick up clues to winning?

I mean, when Tim Gunn says he’s worried and advises you NOT to do something, would you really insist that you like what you’re doing and you’re going to keep doing it? For heavens sake, if you’ve watched the four previous seasons, you will have seen that, when Tim Gunn gives that warning and a contestant doesn’t follow the warning, that contestant is usually in deep muck or, more likely, OUT!

In the first episode last week, as soon as Jerry said that he was going to use a plastic tarp from the grocery store to make a rain jacket, I knew he had the best chance of going OUT (and he did). The judges are always talking about TRANSFORMING weird materials into something different. Hello, Jerry, why would you think making a raincoat out of a plastic tarp could be considered a transformation?

And in the second episode, contestant Leanne – who ended up one away from being OUT – had been told by Tim Gunn that she had too many doodads hanging off her cocktail dress. But, as she told the camera, she wanted to do it her way. And her way almost cost her the contest. (She’s lucky that someone else messed up even more than she did.)

Advice for Project Runway Season 6 contestants – who are yet to be picked and who will be the first contestants for the show’s new home at Lifetime Television – up the smart quotient on the show!

Before you audition for the show, run don’t walk to your nearest video store and study the past seasons. Basically the judges are the same – and it’s pretty clear what they like and don’t like. Take advantage of the trail of contestants before you – and learn that when Tim Gunn says he’s worried, you’d better make some changes as fast as your sewing machine can stitch together a seam.

Technorati Tags:
Bravo TV, Lifetime Television, Project Runway, Tim Gunn, do-gooder, Scrooge

Smoke Free Movies Org Needs Better Message to Attract and Convince Movie People

Smoke free movies in principle is an excellent idea. I truly believe that teens are very much impacted by what they see their favorite stars do in movies. (That’s why years ago I personally led a campaign to encourage the portrayal of safer sex practices in movies – a campaign that got major press but minor action.)

Yet I was totally annoyed by the full-page back page advertisement in the July 15 Daily Variety depicting a gas mask with the headline “Necessary, yes. Sufficient, no.”

The first sentence of the ad text reads: “Does a polluter become ‘green’ by handing out free gas masks?” And then goes on for seven more paragraphs about … well, my eyes glazed over when trying to read the ad text.

At the bottom of the ad was the logo for Smoke Free Movies and the website URL www.SmokeFreeMovies.ucsf.edu.

Now I’m all for eliminating smoking in movies – I believe good screenwriters can think of a better stage direction than “takes a drag on her cigarette to indicate she’s nervous.” But for heaven’s sake – who is going to read this horrible ad with the very tiny print of additional information at the bottom of the page?

If the Smoke Free Movies organization wants to get the attention of busy entertainment industry professionals, the organization needs to do better with its no smoking pitch. As it is, I was tempted to light a match to the ad – and I don’t even smoke!

Technorati Tags:
Smoke Free Movies, entertainment industry, do-gooder, Scrooge

Vitamin D: Needed for a Shield Against Diseases as Well as for Strong Bones

“It’s D-Lightful: Vitamin D Gets Its Moment in the Sun” announced the July 15^th Wall Street Journal Health Journal by Melinda Beck. And the article went on to explain that, while Vitamin D is known for being crucial for strong bones, there’s new research suggesting it also protects against a wide variety of diseases.

Did this news upset me at my age? (Over age 51 the amount of D needed increases.) Not in the least – because only yesterday my new doctor had blood drawn to check my Vitamin D level. The week before, at my first visit to him, he had explained that he’d been finding too low levels of D in his patients.

And since January, when I had my annual gynecological exam, I’ve been taking a Vitamin D supplement daily because my gynecologist told me to do so. (I didn’t ask him why – I just did what he said.)

According to the Journal article, the strongest source of natural Vitamin D is ultraviolet B rays from the sun. These rays convert a form of cholesterol into vitamin D in the skin.

Turns out all of us who have given up sitting in the sun to avoid skin cancer have deprived our bodies of an important vitamin. The Journal article quotes John J. Cannell, founder of the nonprofit Vitamin D Council in Atascadero, California, as saying that Vitamin D “turns into a steroid hormone that’s involved in the maintenance of over 200 human genes.” (See www.vitamindcouncil.org for more info.)

The American Academy of Pediatricians is already recommending that breast-fed infants get 400 international units of supplemental D daily. And the National Osteoporosis Foundation says adults over age 50 should get at least 800 to 1,000 international units to prevent fractures.

The next time you see your doctor, regardless of your age, ask about being tested for a Vitamin D deficiency. It turns out it’s important to be “exposed” to the sun after all – just in a safe (artificial) way.

Technorati Tags:
do-gooder, John J. Cannell, Melinda Beck, Scrooge, Vitamin D, Vitamin D Council, Wall Street Journal, WSJ

Showmethereel.com Offers a “Green” and Faster-Than-FedEx Approach for Creative Talent to Show Their Work to Entertainment Industry Professionals

In my continuing quest to learn everything I can about internet marketing I’ve recently come across a couple of experts who have said: If you find a problem and then you can come up with a solution, be the first to take the solution to market.

I especially appreciated coming across this concept last week because my older daughter and her business partner just launched an internet site to solve a problem they had identified:

Showmethereel.com was launched to solve the problem that entertainment industry creative talent have with the hassle and expense of mailing a reel – of a writer’s best filmed lines or a costume designer’s best wardroom creations or a musical composer’s best compositions.

At www.showmethereel.com creative talent can upload their reels, resumes, credits and blog posts so that industry professionals around the world can instantaneously view the creative talent’s work. No more mailing costs or keeping one’s fingers crossed that the reel actually gets to its destination.

An added benefit – eliminating the reels that are sent out only to be dumped in the trash after viewing. Showmethereel.com is good for the environment while making life easier for creative talent as well as industry professionals who want to view someone’s reel RIGHT NOW.

This is a do-gooder business enterprise I could get behind even if it weren’t a family project.

Technorati Tags:
do-gooder, entertainment industry, Scrooge, Showmethereel.com, green

Whooping Cough Rise in U.S. and Other Infectious Disease Risks Lead to Call for Adult Immunizations

In January of 2005 my older daughter returned with a whooping cough from visiting my sister in Australia. It soon became apparent that she had whooping cough (we listened to a recording of whooping cough on the internet) and had given it to her boyfriend. But we couldn’t get doctors in Los Angeles to agree that these two 20-somethings had whooping cough.

Soon afterwards two things happened. 1) My sister and her younger son were diagnosed with whooping cough, the source of my daughter’s whooping cough. 2) And there was an article in the Los Angeles Times that whooping cough had returned to the U.S. and teens needed to get a booster shot, although doctors were not calling for this booster shot.

Today, three-and-a-half years later, there’s an article in the July 9^th The Informed Patient column by Laura Landro titled “Get Your Shots: Adults Need Vaccines, Too.” The subtitle is “Public-Health Experts Push for National Inoculation Plan; A Rise in Whooping Cough.” (boldface mine)

Hello, the Miller family could have made this announcement three-and-a-half years ago. And it’s not very reassuring to know how long it takes the U.S. medical community to catch up with the reality.

The news today? According to the Journal article, “infectious-disease experts and public health officials are calling for a national program to make immunization as routine a part of health care for adults as it has long been for children.” (Search for “adult immunization schedule” at www.cdc.gov to learn more.)

And at the risk of revealing my age, my husband and I are apparently part of the only 1.9% of adults who have gotten the shingles vaccine, which is recommended for people over 60 who had chicken pox as a child. Medical insurance doesn’t pay – and the shot is pricey ($200 or more depending on where you get it) – but given how painful shingles can be, my husband and I bit the bullet and shelled out for one shot each.

Other vaccines that are not being effectively utilized: Apparently “only about 10% of women aged 18 to 26 have received the new vaccine for human papillomavirus, linked to cervical cancer.” And “fewer than 30% of the adults at highest risk” for the flu get the flu shot each year.

I’ll admit there was something in the article I didn’t know – the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) is recommending that people traveling to European countries, including Austria, Germany and Switzerland, check with their doctor to see if they need a measles vaccine!

And the article also warns that many shots need to be taken weeks ahead of time. So you can’t dash in to get a shot only hours before you board a plane. (See the Travelers’ Health link at www.cdc.gov for travel immunization information, which changes as new infections occur.)

Oh, what about my daughter and her boyfriend? They were fortunate that the medical specialist (whose receptionist my daughter had bullied to get an appointment that day) decided to treat them as if they had whooping cough even though he was sure they didn’t have it.

Technorati Tags:
adult immunization, CDC, do-gooder, Scrooge, shingles, whooping cough, www.cdc.gov

Information Overload: A Full-Page Ad in The Wall Street Journal Makes Me See Red

Today my younger daughter wanted me to read an article on information overload. I told her I didn’t have time to read about it – I was living information overload.

And as an example of information overload, I want to carp about a full-page ad on the back page of the first section of the July 5^th Wall Street Journal. It took me some time to decipher the ad, so I’ll lay it out for you the way I read it:

Pictured on an email screen was an email message to Wives (and Husband) of G8 Leaders with the subject line: A Matter of Life and Death. Here’s the entire email ad (boldface was in the ad as was the misplaced comma separating the subject and the verb in the first sentence of the second paragraph):

“Dear G8 First Ladies (and First Man),

“Every minute of every day a woman dies in childbirth. That’s half a million women dying each year – and over 80% of these deaths are avoidable. But there’s the good news – the person with whom you live can help stop this happening. Really.

“The 30 of us, write to the 8 of you, women to women (and, with respect, also to you Herr Sauer), on behalf of all women … please do what you can to put this issue at the top of the political agenda. We now have the knowledge to crack it – we just need the political will.

“At this year’s G8, your 7 husbands (and 1 wife) have an opportunity to make history. There is a real chance. Please do what you can – on behalf of us all.

“With urgent best wishes,”

And there followed 30 identified head shots of such women as Gwyneth Paltrow, Yoko Ono, and Dame Judi Dench. Then at the very bottom of the ad were these words: Please join these inspirational women and many more as part of the campaign to reduce maternal mortality. www.whiteribbonalliance.org

Now I’m all for improving safety in childbirth. But honestly – does Dame Judi Dench (whose acting I adore) truly think that the above ad – seemingly written by someone who does not speak the Queen’s English – will motivate anyone, especially the heads of states with major economic and security issues, to do anything at the G8 about safer childbirth?

When I read the full-page ad, all I could think of was: The money spent on this ad could probably save at least one woman’s life. And what’s the proposed solution? All the ad says is: “We now have the knowledge to crack it – we just need the political will.”

If the 30 powerful women whose head shots “sign” the ad put their heads and resources together, they could probably come up with solutions that could make childbirth safer even in third world countries. (For example, what about having some of these inspirational women record basic health messages with subtitles in whatever language is needed?)

Instead we’re to believe that these 30 powerful women are truly waiting for seven women and one man to talk to their heads-of-state spouses about trying to prevent childbirth deaths. Now that’s information overload.

Technorati Tags:
Dame Judi Dench, do-gooder, G8, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scrooge, Wall Street Journal, Whiteribbonalliance.org, WSJ, Yoko Ono

New Movie WANTED: Angelina Jolie Does Not This Movie Make

Angelina Jolie is a terrific actor – and I particularly like when she plays a character whose skills are usually reserved for men in movies. Yet even she, a master assassin in the new movie WANTED, cannot save the film.

My husband and I saw it with our older daughter and her boyfriend even though my younger daughter warned us against seeing this film. The younger daughter was fully vindicated when her father reported back: “This is the worst film I’ve seen since WATERWORLD. And maybe WATERWORLD was better than WANTED.”

At least WATERWORLD had a plot. In WANTED I kept waiting for the set up to be over and to get to the main story. It turned out that the set up was the entire film. If we hadn’t paid a lot of money for the film, my husband and I would have left after 10 minutes. To sit through two hours of blood-spattered brains and flipped/crushed cars is really too painful a waste of time.

Oh, yes, and even though the British actor James McAvoy (ATONEMENT) politely held the door open for me at the William Morris Agency as we were both leaving, I have to say that his acting talent is totally wasted in WANTED. In addition, Morgan Freedman has played this same role so many times I doubt he had to memorize his lines. He probably just had to recall his lines from previous films.

Now you’ve been warned. See this film at the risk of your own wallet – and your own sanity.

Technorati Tags:
Angelina Jolie, do-gooder, James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, movie WANTED, movie WATERWORLD, Scrooge, William Morris Agency