Speak Out 11/2/08

ER frustrations

AS A nurse, I get frustrated when I read the comments about local emergency rooms. While I understand that wait times are long and that it is frustrating for patients, let me tell you what I think is frustrating: having to tell someone they will have to wait because we are backed up taking care of patients who use the ER as their primary-care provider, people who call 911 and take an ambulance to the ER for head lice, people who come in for sexually transmitted disease checks on a regular basis (the health department does these for free), people who come in on a weekly or daily basis and people who come in just to get a prescription for generic Tylenol so Medicaid will pay for it. I also like the people who take up time getting triaged just to leave 20 minutes later because they didn't think it would take this long. It's called an emergency room. It's for emergencies. The misuse of our local emergency rooms is frustrating.

Comparing socialism

I SPENT several years in a European country often labeled socialist by political pundits. In that country, health care and college (tuition and boarding) are free for every citizen, and everyone gets at least five weeks of vacation a year. It takes a manual laborer about 20 minutes to earn enough for a meal in a family-style restaurant. Women are allowed up to three years for maternity leave. The national debt is measured in billions, not trillions (translated into U.S. dollars). Despite these facts, American fast-food chains, real estate agencies and countless small business are thriving over there under what we would recognize as competitive capitalism.

Parade trash

DOWNTOWN WAS a mess the morning after the Homecoming parade. A crew should be employed to clean up the trash as soon as possible. Tourists from the riverboat were walking through the area and stepping over trash.

Industrialism is good

CONSUMERISM IS bad. Industrialism is good. With industrialism you have innovation and creativity, which lead to growth in a society. With consumerism you have people flushing money down the giant toilet called the service economy.

Government expansion

MICHAEL JENSEN, an alleged conservative, advocate of small government and apparent supporter of Ronald Reagan, paradoxically supported two presidents (Reagan and Bush) under whom we've seen the greatest expansion of the federal government in history.