JACK BARON EXHIBIT

Jack’s back! Jack Baron! One of Key West’s premier artists. Now dead some six years. Jim Wallace at Joy Gallery has scheduled an exhibit of Jack’s works.

Wallace has accumulated over fifty of Jack’s paintings from private collectors. I am one of them. I have 14 pieces. Several will be in the exhibit.

The Jack Baron exhibit opens Friday evening, May 2, at 6 in the evening. Refreshments will be available. The exhibit will remain open through May 17.

It is not necessary you buy. Though it would be nice. The exhibit is an opportunity to view a large number of Jack’s paintings. Such an event may never occur again.

Lunched at Burger Fi yesterday. I have returned! Their product was not the best a couple of months ago when they first opened. The burgers have since gotten dramatically better. Robert and Ally enjoyed their cheeseburgers last Saturday. I enjoyed a double today.

While at Burger Fi, I met the manager. Rob Litman. He is retired military. Originally from Philadelphia. Has a daughter living in Key West. Came down to join her. Now burger Fi has been added to his family.

Rob told me Wednesday night is Ladies Night. Everything like half price. Raven Cooper is singing again tonight. A spectacular voice!

One of the things I like best about Burger Fi is that locals get a 20 per cent discount. A burger costs nothing to begin with. Throw in the discount and it is like eating for nothing.

Needed the New York City touch. Had dinner at the bar at Marriott’s Tavern ‘n Town. Mike Emerson performing again. I sat reading the newspaper, sipping some gin and picking on fried calamari. At the same time, singing quietly along with Mike Emerson.

England’s John and Ali were at Tavern ‘n Town having dinner with Ray and several others.

College tuition in the news again. Loans, payments, etc. A sad situation. What happened to working your way through. I did, as many of my friend’s did. We made it and generally with good grades. Liberalism took over and decided that the government would help finance college. Has not worked fairly. Graduates are burdened with tons of payments that in many instances are impossible to meet.

What galls me and is little known is that our benevolent government is benefiting big time. Last year, the government made over $40 billion off the loan programs.

Chiropractors and Medicare. It was announced yesterday that a Brooklyn chiropractor charged and was paid in excess of $1 million by Medicare in 2012. I do not know the details. However, sounds like a lot of money to me.

When I started practicing law in 1960, a chiropractor could neither testify nor have his bills paid as part of a negligence law suit. New York did not recognize chiropractor as a profession and so any testimony regarding them was not admissible. Now, they are a major factor and force.

I am not expressing an opinion as to right or wrong. Merely stating the facts as they have developed from the 1960s to present date.

Bocce tonight. Yesterday was the first day I felt better since Sunday. Never again will I play bocce in the day time in the boiling sun!

Enjoy your day!


TUESDAY TALK WITH KEY WEST LOU

 

Tuesday Talk with Key West Lou is my blog talk radio show. Tuesday at 9 on the internet.

I did the blog talk radio show last night. That is not what I wish to share.

Statistics are maintained by some one out in the internet world or by the site itself. I receive weekly stats regarding my tuesday night talk show.

The numbers received yesterday blew my mind! Just under 1,800 people listened to the show last week! A WOW!

I have been doing the show 6-7 weeks. The first week I had an audience of 8. In less than two months, that audience has increased to almost 1,800. Dramatic!

The show is received two ways. The show can be listened to live on tuesday evening. It is also archived, if that is the correct word. It is thereafter run for seven consecutive days 2-4 times a day on several different sites. With a click of the button, a person can hear the show whenever they want.

Most of my listeners are from the archived repeat show.

I thank each one of you. Whether on tuesday at 9 or during the week. I was becoming disillusioned with the early numbers. I am reenergized.

My yesterday began with the dentist. Again. I think we have it, however. One more visit should do it. I know, I keep saying it. It has been roughly two years since I started the process. I cannot wait for it to end.

Then another father/daughter sit down with Lisa.

The weather turned yesterday. Warm. Back to shorts and a tee shirt. I walked a bit. The hot sun felt good. I sat by the pool in the sun for an hour reading. I am still trying to get through the Ulysses Grant book. Lengthwise, it reminds me of War and Peace.

I was wide awake after the blog talk radio show last night. I stayed up till midnight working on my friday TV/internet show, the Key West Lou Legal Hour. Came up with goodies like Tehran and its rat problem (comparable to South Florida’s python problem), UN members  drunk at budget meetings, certain toilet paper religiously offensive, and Budweiser’s answer to the claim it has been watering its beer.

Syracuse basketball tonight. De Paul. At 6. I anticipate Syracuse will win. I hope. I do not know any more. I will be at the Big Ten Sports Pub watching.

Some things happen fortuitously. Some coincidentally. Yesterday, I wrote regarding Medicare and hospital cleanliness. Too many nasty bugs in hospitals attacking patients.

This morning, one of the major news items involves hospital cleanliness.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced/warned of a new superbug. An untreatable bacteria. A nightmare bacteria. Resilient to most antibiotics. The bacteria has a high mortality rate.

The short name for the bacteria is CRE.

CRE is an infection which occurs post admission.

So far CRE has only been detected in hospitals and nursing homes. Nowhere outside these two facilities.

Terri White! My Terri White! Reborn in Key West. Terri is doing a performance at San Francisco’s premier night club, Live at the Razz. The show is March 13. Readers and friends in the San Francisco/Bay area, catch her show. She is the best!

Enjoy your day!

 

NOSOCOMIAL

 

It’s a word! For real! Refers to an infection acquired in a hospital setting. A post admission complication or problem. The hospital is regarded as at fault.

Permit me to share how I learned about  nosocomial.

Charles Kurault was a famous television commentator and writer. He is now dead. Kurault visited Key West frequently. He was especially fond of Schooner Wharf. He claimed it was the center of the universe.

I do not wish to beconsidered a copy cat. However, that is how I feel about the Chart Room. It is the center of universe. I meet everyone from everywhere. In the process, I learn much from them.

Last night, I met Bill and Kati from Skaneateles. A small upstate New York community sitting on one of the Finger Lakes. Bill is involved in business in some fashion. Kati a nurse.

Kati is a nurse at St. Joseph Hospital in Syracuse. My son was born there in 1959.

Kati does not work as a nurse per se. Her responsibility has to do with hospital acquired infections and their prevention. Along the way, she mentioned Medicare a couple of times. My curiosity was piqued.

The internet is my world. This morning I looked up hospital acquired infections. That is where I first became aware of the term nosocomial. Sounds like it might have come out of the Chart Room after several drinks. It did not.

My Kati inspired research indicated the following.

Everything is about money.

Several years ago Medicare said it would no longer pay for infections acquired in a hospital setting after admission. Things like a staph infection. Medicare’s position was that the problem was hospital caused and the hospital should bear responsibility. Not quite true, but that is how Medicare viewed the situation.

Nor could the hospital charge the patient. The hospital was and is required to eat the charges. What Medicare was actually saying was that the hospitals should keep themselves clean.

Most insurance companies have adopted Medicare’s position.

After doing the digging reflected, I was better able to understand Kati’s job and the necessity for such a position.

The type of infections not payable include urinary tract infections, surgical site infections, bloodstream problems and pneumonia.

Is the Medicare inspired program working? Are hospitals overcoming the problem? It was thought by affecting the hospitals’ pocket books, they would clean up their act.

Hospitals are putting out the effort. The results are not there, however.

A recent New England Journal of Medicine article indicated that non payment had no measurable effect on infection rates in hospitals.

So much for nosocomial.

See what came out of my meeting with Kati at the Chart Room last night!

Enjoy your day! I am not certain of mine. I start with the dentist.