Sunday punditry, as Labor Day approaches...
Ron Brownstein:
The dominant health care story that emerged from August is one of frenzied confrontation -- seniors standing on folding chairs to scream at senators; sign-wielding protesters shouting across parking lots.
Those conflicts were real and raw. But they are only part of the story. With much less notice, many key stakeholders in the medical establishment, including several that mobilized against previous efforts to overhaul the nation's health care system, have come together behind reform. "That's very different from what we've ever experienced before and why there is every reason to be optimistic that health care reform will happen," says Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a liberal health advocacy group.
Nicholas Kristof:
President Obama has already dispatched an additional 21,000 American troops to Afghanistan and soon will decide whether to send thousands more. That would be a fateful decision for his presidency, and a group of former intelligence officials and other experts is now reluctantly going public to warn that more troops would be a historic mistake.
Thomas Friedman:
After eight years of work there, the United States still does not have a reliable Afghan partner to hand off to. It’s time to discuss if nation building is still worth doing and at what cost?
Jim Hoagland:
Japan's voters have thrust power on an incoherent coalition of hungry politicians distinguished only by their willingness to promise anything to anybody anytime. Good for them. In many ways we should applaud the Japanese who voted for what is being described as "change they can't believe in."
The distorted echo of President Obama's campaign slogan is hardly accidental. Japan's Aug. 30 national election may turn out to be the first of many examples of the Obama factor reshaping politics in other countries. The victorious Democratic Party of Japan skillfully linked its opponents to George W. Bush and free-for-all, destructive capitalism while identifying themselves with the new U.S. president's push for economic recovery and social transformation through government spending.
Andrew Alexander (WaPo Ombudsman):
The Post recently featured a story by reporter Monica Hesse that ran on the front of the Style section while she was on vacation. The day before returning, she logged on to check e-mails -- and wept.
She was buried by an avalanche of messages angrily attacking her lengthy Aug. 28 profile of Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the group leading the fight against legalization of same-sex marriage.
Today's public service announcement:
Influenza-like illness (ILI) is a fever, and either cough or sore throat. CDC tracks the percentage of doctor visits for this illness using a network of sentinel docs. This is the country as a whole, with the red line representing 2009 (the other lines are previous years, useful as a baseline for comparison):
This chart shows that the southeastern part of the US is starting to have a rough time, likely due to H1N1 (most people are not formally tested.)
This represents extensive, but outpatient, illness. It also shows more ILI now than in the middle of flu season last winter.
You can find your own regional graph here, and find weekly updates here. Things are just starting, and you still have time to make preparations such as alternate child care in an emergency, and downloading some home care guides here and here so you have them on hand. And consider getting a novel H1N1 flu shot if you are in a high risk group, such as
- pregnant women,
- persons who live with or provide care for infants aged less than 6 months (e.g., parents, siblings, and daycare providers),
- health-care and emergency medical services personnel who have direct contact with patients or infectious material,
- children aged 6 months to 4 years, and
- children and adolescents aged 5-18 years who have medical conditions that put them at higher risk for influenza-related complications.
when the vaccine is available in October. Everyone can get one by end of December, but those folks go first.