Curing The Sick Health Care System

Wisconsin Health Care Solutions Forum in Oshkosh

As part of 2006 Cover the Uninsured Week (May 1-7), The Earth Charter Oshkosh and the League of Women Voters have teamed up to organize "Curing the Sick - Health Care Solutions for Wisconsin". The program will take place Thursday, May 4 from 7pm - 8:30pm at the Coughlin Center, 625 E County Rd Y, Oshkosh.

Presentations will cover 3 current Health Care proposals in Wisconsin:- Wisconsin Health Plan (2005 AB 114)- Wisconsin Health Security Act (2005 SB 388/AB 807)- Wisconsin Health Care Partnership Plan. In addition, there will be community perspectives offered from local business leaders and city government leaders. This event is free and open to the public.

What? Could You Repeat That Please?

Aging Baby Boomers. Dr. Farrell of Affiliated Clinic told me that 'Baby Boomers' must have the moniker 'Aging' in front of it. That's right. Those of us born in those years following WWII are now slowly heading for the sunset. It was interesting circa 1968-70 to live in a country where half the population was under the age of 25 and don't trust anyone over 30 was the mantra.

Hearing loss affects many boomers including this one. I had one form since birth and general loss of overall hearing from age 20 to the present. A recent hearing test shows that I have a dismal 35% of normal hearing. If good hearing is 100%, 80% hearing is the low end of what is considered normal.

During the course of the hearing test my Word Comprehension was checked. I scored 20% on that one. That means that if I have my back to someone I can discern with regularity: TWO WORDS OUT OF TEN! That scares me.

The audiologist said: "Sit down and look at me. Gary, I find it quite amazing that you are able to carry on a conversation. Your ability to lip read and read gestures and facial nuances is indeed quite amazing."

I knew my hearing was bad but I didn't know to what extent. The good news is that I should have a pair of digital programmable hearing aids in about three weeks.

There is more...

Everyone, even those without hearing loss, lose the ability to comprehend words as they get older. I call it Hearing Dyslexia. That is when a person says one thing and I hear something that bears no resemblance to what they said.

Captain Beefheart in the Trout Mask Replica album:
-She was under duress,
-He was under her dress.

It is horrible to live on a daily basis where one tells me something and I hear something else.

There is a new online program which deals with this problem. It is for hearing aid and non-hearing aid persons. The program claims it can increase word comprehension in some cases by 30%! I would be beaming if I could increase mine by just 10%. Here is the address: http://www.neurotone.com

I was tipped to this by my audiologist Juliette Sterkens. Juliette is a remarkable person. She is half the partnership of Fox Valley Hearing Center just off Witzel near Hy41. A native of Holland, Juliette has just received her Doctor of Audiology Degree. She was in San Francisco recently where she attended a conference on 'ear-obics' and she wants me to do the online program. I'm excited. There will be a report on this when I'm finished.

WRST Fortieth Birthday

Activities can be found here. Of note is the Saturday morning social, 9am to noon, at the New Moon Cafe on Main Street. Many involved in the past and present will be there including Joy Cardin from Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR).

What does a radio person look like? To enhance the Saturday morning coffee I suggest one of the following:

• Nametags (tacky)
• A Kiosk with a photo/name and short bio.
• A program of some sort with the same info.

I haven't heard if Doc Schneider will be there, but I hope so.

Public radio in Oshkosh is good: WRST 90.3, classical music 89.3 WPNE Green Bay, and if a person wishes to listen to Ben Merens in the afternoon on WPR he can be heard on 88.1, also out of Green Bay.

My wish list for Oshkosh includes Air America Radio. The closest station to us is WXXM-FM 92.1 from Madison. It doesn't come in 'till just west of Waupun. Some of us like more variety in our day and I feel that the commercial stations in the Oshkosh area are missing a lot of advertiser dollars by not carrying this national feed in the Valley. You can find out who these owners are by going here. A direct link can be found on Tony Palmeri's home page.

For many years in the Madison area Jim Mader was an extremely popular radio personality on the old WIBA-AM. He even did national ads for Weber Grills. He died rather young and the obituary noted that he grew up in Oshkosh, joined the armed services, and then returned home and graduated from UWO. To date I have never met an Oshkosh resident who knew of him.

See you Saturday.

Five Rivers Open Records Request

The 'Five Rivers' project has been the subject of open records requests of late. Ann Frisch, citizen, made an initial request. During the process to set up convenient times to exercise the 'records' request and give the Planning Services Division of the Oshkosh Dept. of Community Development time to compile and have the records ready for inspection, Ann received a letter from the City of Oshkosh Attorney's office. It was signed by Lynn A. Lorenson, Assistant City Attorney.

The two page letter contained many things of note and with Ann Frisch's permission I am printing one paragraph verbatim.

Subject: The City has hired outside Attorneys and private Financial Consultants to help with the Five Rivers project. (This was news to me and it might be news to you.)

At any rate, read this paragraph, think about it, and feel free to comment on it...

The City of Oshkosh has retained outside counsel and financial consultants to work with the City in the process of redevelopment of the parcel contemplated for development by the Five Rivers Corporation. After reviewing the files, I am denying your request for correspondence as that request may relate to correspondence with the attorney representing the City of Oshkosh as the Correspondence is privileged under 905.03 of the Wisconsin Statutes. In addition I am denying your request for information for correspondence as that request may relate to correspondence with the attorneys representing the city and the Financial consultants representing the City because, after weighing the various competing interests, it is my conclusion that the public interests favoring disclosure of the requested items are outweighed by those public interests favoring non-disclosure.

(signed) Lynn A. Lorenson

Asst. City Attorney

I will put my own comments in the comment section of this blog but will leave you with this...

When we (four of us) met to look at the records we learned from the very pleasant clerk in the Planning Services Division that this was the first open records request ever made in the time she has worked there.