Undercurrents

According to the Washington Post, the Bush administration has announced that it intends to push for a federal regulation that “empowers federal health officials to pull funding from more than 584,000 hospitals, clinics, health plans, doctors’ offices and other entities if they do not accommodate employees who refuse to participate in care they find objectionable on personal, moral or religious grounds.” (more…)

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This Thursday May 22nd is the opening day of the Farmers’ Market at Billings Forge.  The market is located on Broad St. between Capitol and Russ, right next to the Firebox Restaurant.  Chef Jason Collin will be giving a cooking demonstration at 12:30 pm.

After last year’s successful first season the market will be open Mondays and Thursdays from 11 am to 2 pm with twice the vendors, prepared foods, picnic tables, and live music through the month of October.  Please visit their website for more information at www.hartfordfarmersmarket.org.

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This is horrifying.  How deep (read: cruel) is our societal hysteria about marijuana?  This shows pretty clearly how our idiotic assumptions about the plant - and that’s all it is, a plant - trump decisions of life and death.

Click here for the Yahoo News story about a dying man’s struggle to live, and how his medical marijuana use may be his death sentence.

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I would like to offer the following video I created from two great sources: TransHouston and Shona’s Flames in the Looking Glass: I presented this video at an Hispanic Health Council panel this morning on Trans & HIV/AIDS that I shared with Mucha, Mucha Pleasure and Lola.Download link

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Depression has a lot of quirks to it. It’s a disease that can make you feel off balance in a lot of ways. It makes you more likely to use drugs and die of all sorts of other diseases, such as alcoholism. Fortunately, there’s a common remedy for all this, which doesn’t involve drugs or visits that cost $150/hour.

Exercise is a very important activity in the race against depression. Keeping active produces feel good chemicals that counteract that general down in the dumps feeling. And the best place to exercise is, of course, your local fitness center. So, being a person prone to such things as (say) severe manic depression. And, having not frequented (said) local fitness center, since I lived in New York. I figured it was time to tour the best clubs that Hartford had to offer.

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On the top bar of my Firefox browser sits a series of symbols – the projected weather for the next four days and nights. For today (Sunday) through Wednesday, the days are marked with an odd little red squiggly thing. When I look closer I can see that it is supposed to be a red thermometer with little lines of heat radiating from it. Hot weather ahead.

I spend most of my day in an air-conditioned office. At home we have air conditioning in the bedrooms but not in the rest of the house. After ten years of driving halfway across the state to go to court while wearing a suit and tie on the most miserable days of summer, I finally broke down and bought a car with air conditioning. Anyway I don’t like intensive air conditioning I just want it to be somewhat below 90 degrees and less humid. Those little red thermometers don’t pose much of a threat to me and mine.

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The Farmers’ Market at Billings Forge opens Thursday for the first time!  Hartford’s newest farmers’ market is located in the courtyard of the new Firebox Restaurant at 559 Broad St., a block south of Capitol Ave.  The market will be open every Thursday from 11 am to 3 pm through October and will feature fresh, local CT grown goods, including beef, cheese, and bread.  In addition, there will be live music and cooking demonstrations by Jason Collin, executive chef of the Firebox.

The opening will be celebrated with Mayor Eddie Perez, city council members, and friends at 12:30 pm.  Cooking demonstrations will take place at 12 pm and 1 pm and finger-style guitarist Glenn Roth will play.  Come brave the weather and get the best tasting, just-picked corn, blueberries, cherries, and great vegetables available this side of a farm!

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To counter the release of Michael Moore’s Sicko, Google’s Health Advertising Blog set out to reassure its insurance industry clients. According to Google’s Lauren Turner, Moore’s film “…fails to show healthcare’s interest in patient well-being and care.”

In Turner’s sob story, entitled Does negeative press make you Sicko?, she laments the “negative press” aimed at the insurance industry. She states the media uses “isolated, heartbreaking, or sensationalist story to paint a picture of healthcare as a whole.” (more…)

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As bad as the healthcare problem is across the board, the racial disparities that exist within the healthcare crisis are worse. Connecticut is no exception. It seems Jim Crow continues to find subtle ways to disadvantage people of color.

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