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Vol. 10 Issue 49…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…December
7, 2007
Intuit's Vibe
Confession
By Yohannes Sharriff
Honestly,
I'm eastside stomping out of the bed before dawn
Humbling the glorious rhythm of these parts
The conquering hearts that warm the dark
Before the sun, the cops, the cars and stars
that color my thoughts a Basquiat Decatur funk
with the swagger of god
plum wine with acoustic guitars
Let's ride from where I am to wherever you are
Can you relate? When poetry doesn't pay the bills
we post our resumes on Craig's list.
Confession,
I had to get a job to afford my expression
Nothing glamorous about my life
But the creator is excellent.
Might get fooled by bright lights and extras
Camera angles and the key grip
Question, can you relate
to being great at rocking open mics?
But, open mics ain't a profession
Confession, I moved back home
Couldn't handle the pressure, according to my ex
Lost my direction somewhere
between king and court jester
My dreams guided me home
like road signs and reflectors
Inspired by the lessons I learned
The pain and pleasure
How fame gets the best of lames
Try to test you ..envy will fester
And, the feds are listening
Damn what they tell you...them minutes ain't free
They're tracking through your cellular
So check who you telephone after seven
Cause self worth more than what we selling
So when the price is in question, I don't even answer
Ancestors guided through the test
But my mom's diagnosed with cancer
Can you relate to it taking years
before you get the point of your own poem?
Confession, I struggle with doubt
Obsessing about the past
So much so I miss the present
Hard to see hard times as a blessing
Hard to see good times when you stressing
Can you relate to your mistakes with no edits
life as a freeway with no exits
to the best of my ability?
My dreams within reach
My poems squeeze epicures for nectar
lady come sweet or sour
I tsunami down beaches for buried treasure
Confession, I do smoke excessively
But what I know keeps me on ledges
Can you relate to every word and every letter
For the better never lesser
For the record, my faith is a blade that just won't dull
Juggernaut to blocks that just won't budge
Cause end of the night when the lights go down
And the crowd has gone home
I'm the guy in the back of the truck
Ready to choke life out of the road manager
Stuck cleaning up after the artist
fighting off fans trying to bargain
For a back stage pass to see the band
Damn and all I want is to spit this poem inside my head
And get some head from a fan
For a change
For a chance to debut my new song
You've never seen a brighter sun
And, I can tell you about it
but
you'll see when I'm done
Grady Memorial
Hospital
Frequently referred to simply as
"Grady," Grady Memorial Hospital is the largest hospital in Georgia.
It is the public hospital for Atlanta.
In the late 1800s, Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution,
denounced the lack of indigent healthcare. The city built a hospital at the
intersection of College and Butler Streets. Named for Henry Grady, it opened in
May 1892 with 100 charity beds and 10 paying patients.
The original building at 36 Butler Street is on the National Register of
Historic Places. The second Grady Hospital for whites only opened in 1912;
blacks were segregated at the Atlanta Medical College. Although it is a single
building, the facility was referred to as "The Gradys"
during segregation, which ended in 1956. The name still surfaces among
Atlanta's elderly black residents. The third hospital was at Hirsch Hall, and
the current location, its fourth, was built as a segregated institution, with
one section for whites and another serving blacks.
Since 1945, the Fulton/DeKalb Hospital Authority has
run Grady. From the outset, Emory had the entire responsibility for providing
healthcare at Grady. It's affiliation with Grady dates back to 1915 when
Atlanta Medical College became Emory University School of Medicine. In the
1930s, Emory and Grady formalized an agreement for Emory to provide doctors to
Grady in return for the hospital's use as a teaching facility. Since then,
thousands of Emory students have trained at Grady. Under the first contract in
1951, Emory was responsible for providing all medical care at Grady.
In 1978, Morehouse School of Medicine was founded to train family-care
physicians to practice in medically under-served inner city and rural areas.
When Morehouse graduated its first class in 1985, its physicians and students
began to share medical responsibilities at Grady. In 1984, a new contract gave
Morehouse responsibility for proving about a quarter of general surgery,
medicine, pediatrics, and gynecology and obstetrics services at Grady. The contract
extends until 2013.
Approximately one of every four physicians now practicing in Georgia spent time
in Grady through the Emory and Morehouse programs. Each year, there are more
than 750,000 patient visits and hospitalizations at Grady.
Grady is nationally recognized for its research. Its centers of excellence in
public healthcare include one of the nation's leading trauma centers, a
nationally known burn center, centers for HIV and AIDS, poison control, sickle
cell, perinatal care and neonatal ICU, community
mental health, tuberculosis, pediatric asthma and hazardous materials
detoxification. Grady's community outreach and emergency center provide
unparalleled services to the citizens of metro Atlanta. (Sources:http://en.wikipedia.org, www.emory.edu and www.gradyhealthsystem.org)
Grady's Crisis
Most US teaching hospitals
experience financial problems. Likewise, Grady faces a financial crisis with a
twist. The Grady twist is the groups proposing and opposing change in its
governance as a solution to its crisis. Like most things involving economics
and politics in the south, issues of class and race color the debate over
Grady's fate.
For 10 of the last 11 years, Grady has operated in the red. It is expected to
run a deficit of $50 million to $55 million in this year's $730 million budget.
A number of factors contributed to these deficits. The Balanced Budget Act of
1997, which sought to trim healthcare costs, meant sizeable cuts in Medicare
reimbursements. On the heels of these cuts, the state of Georgia's patient
population is aging with a corresponding increase in the number of high-cost
illnesses treated at the facility. More patients lack health insurance, while
the size of reimbursements from managed care and government payers is
shrinking. And, the costs of drugs and health care in general are rising.
Grady is partially funded by reimbursements for uninsured health care to the
Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority and by taxes from
residents of DeKalb and Fulton counties. Most of
Emory and Morehouse residents' salaries are paid through federal and state
funds for graduate medical education. Grady also receives indirect medical
education support from the Health Care Financing Administration.
Earlier this year, an Atlanta Chamber of Commerce task force recommended a
change in governance to restore the confidence of lenders, foundations and
Georgia's Republican leaders. If adopted, the change would effectively take
control of the hospital from the majority black elected commissioners of Fulton
and DeKalb Counties.
After months of debate, the Fulton/DeKalb Hospital
Authority voted last week to change the hospital's governance by creating a new
nonprofit management board. The public authority will continue to own Grady's
real estate. Whether or not the resolution creating the new board is adopted is
contingent on fulfilling certain conditions, including half a billion dollars
in financial support from the state, business community and others.
The condition-laden resolution has its critics, including Rev. Timothy
Mc-Donald, a leader of the Grady Coalition, the hospital workers union and
other blacks that claim the proposed change is a takeover attempt by powerful
white business people that do not support Grady's historic mission of providing
quality healthcare for the needy. Some activists and elected officials believe
Grady's problem is not about governance, rather it is financial; they point to
the need for adequate funding by the state and federal governments in addition
to the need for other metro Atlanta counties to help defray the cost of providing
healthcare for their nonpaying citizens. At least one of 12 Grady patients
comes from outside Fulton and DeKalb counties.
Keep Grady Public
By John Burl Smith
The Fulton-DeKalk
Hospital Authority was created on August 6, 1941 to own and operate the Grady
Health System, which includes Grady and Hughes Spalding Hospitals, Crestview
Nursing and Rehabilitation Facility and other neighborhood health centers and
real properties. The Grady Health System is the primary provider of healthcare
for indigent and uninsured citizens and non-citizens in the Atlanta
Metropolitan Area. Although DeKalb and Fulton
residents are the only citizens that pay to support the Grady Health System,
residents from any county, even undocumented aliens, can and do use the system.
And, therein lies the real healthcare crisis.
The Grady System is in deep financial trouble and as a result it has faced
short-falls in revenue for a decade or more. Quick-fix after quick-fix has been
tried, but its problems have continued to mount. Now, to make matters worse,
Grady faces accreditation problems. There is plenty of blame to go around and
finger pointing is rampant.
First, other counties refuse to commit to funding Grady and do not reimburse it
timely, if at all, for servicing their citizens. Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has
reduced Grady's funding, even though patient care needs have steadily
increased. Furthermore, the state of Georgia does not fully pay for immigrants
serviced by Grady. Sadly, HUD Secretary Alphonso
Jackson is missing in action on help for Grady, along with Senators Saxby
Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, US Reps. John Lewis, David Scott and Hank
Johnson.
The private sector is also a culprit in many ways but simply put, racism is at
the heart of the business community's disinterest in assuring Grady remains a
public hospital. The poor in Atlanta means black citizens, and the Chamber of
Commerce is run by white men with a slave master mind-set. Philanthropic or
eleemosynary organizations, including churches, generally look the other way
when it comes to financial support for Grady. Consequently, Grady's hole gets
deeper.
Even darker times are on the horizon for the indigent and uninsured in regards
to healthcare in the Atlanta area. Much like the dreaded four horsemen of the
apocalypse, the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority,
State of Georgia, the Chamber of Commerce and private interests are conspiring
to privatize the Grady Health System. Singing a siren's song to the tune of a
501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation as the solution, the
Hospital Authority is relying on promises from the same groups that stood idly
by and let Grady drown in a sea of red ink. Now, they are riding to its rescue
like knights in shining amour. They have charged in like vultures ready to pick
lucrative carrion from the bones by promising $500 million of future capital
improvements but not one dime for patient care.
The process has become shrouded in secrecy. Deals are being cut in smoke-filled
backrooms. The Grady Coalition, which is made up of representatives from social
action groups like Jobs with Justice, Atlanta Transit Riders Union, Atlanta
International Action Network, AFSCME, National Action Network and others, has
held protests; it has been shut out of the latest round of meetings. Meetings
are being moved and held without public notice; security has begun attacking
protesters and there have been arrests. The news media are selling this
privatization sham to the public. Most negotiations have taken place in
violation of Georgia's Open Records Act, O.C.G.A.§
50-18-70, et seq., and Georgia Open Meetings Law, O.C.G.A.§ 50-14-1, et seq.,
the media are silent on these violations.
The Grady Coalition is asking activists and those concerned for poor and
oppressed people to come to their aid. They are asking everyone to call or
email the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce (404) 880-9000 or email samwilliams@macoc.com, The Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority at 404-616-6813 and Governor
Perdue at 404-656-1776, HUD Secretary Jackson at (202) 708-1112, Senators
Chambliss at 202-224-3521 and Isakson at (202) 224-3643, US Reps. Lewis at
(202) 225-3801, Scott at (202) 225-2939 and Johnson at (202) 225-1605 and
demand they keep Grady a public hospital.
Religious Symbolism and Archangel
By Stacy Chase
Religious symbols are powerful motivators and reminders of from whence we came.
Who we are and why we are here are dominant themes in the story line of
Archangel: A Hip Hop Vision of Love and the Battle of
Good Verses Evil, a new self published novel by John Burl Smith.
Humans have struggled with the questions Who
am I and why am I here? since the first time some
hairy creature looked into a watery pool and recognized its reflection. This
quandary fueled human curiosity, imagination, intuition and creativity as Homo
sapiens groped to fashion answers to these questions.
Emotional attachment and its expression came to be symbolized as love. It is
the strongest human emotion and the most powerful force in the universe. Love
was transformed into an article of faith and symbolized in the crucifixion of
Jesus Christ as the ultimate example. His love and sacrifice became the symbol
of hope for humankind. Such unselfish giving of one's self is the supreme act
of charity. Hence without love there is no hope. Absent hope, charity is
baseless and faith is empty. These symbolize the essence of Christianity and
most religions of the world.
Beginning with its cover, Archangel, a romance/mystery, invokes the symbol of
St. Michael, the embodiment of justice and retribution. The balancing force in
the universe, the feminine appearance accentuates the asexual nature of angels
and heightens St. Michael's nurturing role as the protector of humankind. The
parable of the Good Samaritan and the work of St. Katharine Drexel put charity
on a personal level in Archangel by divorcing it from material examples of the
act. Archangel highlights the motive for the gift as the symbol of charity not
what is given.
Love, the ultimate symbol, is the basis of faith and charity. It binds us
together in ways that defy explanation. It can motivate humans to perform acts
for others in situations that are totally unimaginable were it not for that
powerful human bond. Metaphorically, Smith uses the historical struggle of
black families and their relentless battle to overcome the impact of slavery to
symbolize the goal of building productive lives. Idyllically, he illustrates
the connectivity of these symbols as the cohesion that has held black people
together in their drive to develop into one people.
The church was essential in this struggle. For centuries it was a state of mind
for black people, only sometimes was it a building. Meeting in fields and
swamps, black people connected with an inner spirit as ancient as time itself.
And, in that regard, Smith uses Archangel to illustrate how the black church
became a symbol of community life that endures until today.
Archangel: A Hip Hop Vision of Love and the Battle of Good Verses Evil
can be ordered online at www.archangelworld.com,
via email at archangelworld@ga.net
or call 404-244-6023. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book goes
to support The DISH, so don't delay; please order your copy
today.
On Me, Cancer and Grady!
By Dot
For nearly a year, I have been battling cancer. It has been a daunting
challenge, a real life and death struggle. In my scariest nightmares about
life, death and health, I never dreamed I would contract cancer. Most of the
illnesses and deaths among my immediate family members, except those who died
of natural causes, came as a result of diabetes, heart disease and high blood
pressure, ailments common among black people. Yet, here I am with a disease I
know little about, even though it afflicts millions worldwide. It just goes to
illustrate the unpredictability of life.
Many DISH readers have noted changes over this period and made
discreet inquiries. Now, you know - my family and I have been battling a
serious illness. And, while we have had to delay distributing weekly
installments of the newsletter and updating the website as a result of several
hospitalizations, thanks to the sacrifices and dedication of my family, we have
not missed an issue. Moreover, The DISH continues to be
published.
On a more personal note, through the chemo, pain, radiation and multiple
hospitalizations, my family has been my rock of Gibraltar. Family has held me
upright, when I just wanted to lie down and give up. When all I could
physically do was throw up, my family was there with loving support. Without
them, I could not have weathered this storm or be prepared to continue the
fight. There are challenges remaining - the cancer is not gone - but, with
their support, there is nothing I cannot overcome or at least gracefully handle.
I also owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Grady Health System. Without
adequate health insurance, Grady provided the treatment to aggressively attack
my cancer. While we -- patients, their families and taxpayers - may complain
about things, like waiting time and costs, we know Grady is truly a godsend for
the poor and indigent and those economically better off that are critically
ill, because it is a healthcare leader in the region. Grady deserves to be
saved, because Grady saves lives and improves the quality of life for millions.
Finally, I have been the
beneficiary of the powerful prayers and well wishes of countless people, many I
have never personally met. Thank you all for the love you have shown my family
and me.
Disgruntled says: Money changers own the
US. With their obscene profits, money changers exert tremendous influence over
those elected to run this country. As a result, all the people get from this
government are platitudes and bandages. A good example is the December 4, 2007
hearing held by the Senate Governmental Affairs Sub-Committee on Credit Card
Industry Practices. For years, consumers have complained about the predatory
tactics employed by these money changers. Like subprime
lenders, credit card companies charge exorbitant interest rates, in some cases
as high as 27 percent. When consumers cannot or do not pay, they write off bad
debts, taking tax credits. Then, they sell these bad debts for pennies on the
dollar to unscrupulous debt collection companies that are wholly or partially
owned by the credit card company, like downstream subprime
lenders that are owned by banks. Congress should have investigated the
practices of these money changing predators before reforming the nation's
bankruptcy laws to allow these bloodsuckers to prey more deeply on unsuspecting
consumers. Now, Congress is proposing some band-aid bill that will not end the
predatory practices that fatten the pockets of credit card companies'
executives and investors.
Disgruntled
feels: Unconvinced! Much like Chinese water torture in which the water
keeps dripping, this week the Bush administration dropped another bombshell.
According to the latest unclassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iran
ceased its nuclear weapons program in 2003. In a press conference after this
revelation and months of saber-rattling, George W. Bush claimed he received the
information mere days before it became public, even though he was told much
earlier there was new information on the Iranian nuclear weapons situation. To
cap it all off, this new information will not change the administration's
stance, particularly its efforts to convince the United Nations to implement
harsher sanctions against Iran for doing what the NIE says it is not doing. In
the final analysis, this latest revelation, on top of all that has already
transpired, makes the Bush administration more incredulous. People worldwide
remain unconvinced that the liar-in-chief and his minions can be trusted about
anything.
Disgruntled
wants to know: For years, the southern portions of DeKalb
County and Atlanta, Georgia have been hotbeds of predatory lending. As property
values precipitously rose, the predators sold unsuspecting borrowers a
smorgasbord of exotic mortgages; people bought and lost homes by the thousands
every month in metro Atlanta. At one point, the area topped the foreclosure
rate chart. Launched in January 2007, the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of
Metro Atlanta Hotline (1-888-995-HOPE) has assisted more than a thousand DeKalb County homeowners facing foreclosure. In case you
missed the connection, this is the same hotline number given out by the Bush
administration in announcing its plan on Thursday (12-06-07) to "slow the
pace of mortgage foreclosures." While the Bush plan to assist subprime borrowers is being touted as a rescue effort, none
of the millions of homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) that have already reset, those that bought their
homes prior to 2005, or those that have missed payments, or have second
mortgages will be eligible for the five-year interest rate freeze or
refinancing. Given its strict eligibility requirements, is it really a rescue
plan to assist average Americans in saving their homes, or is it another
bailout for the business sector that created and profited from the mortgage
crisis?
Mailbox: E-mail, Faxes and Phone Calls
Email www.businessweek.com ...Fresh Pain for the
Uninsured...By Brian Grow and Robert Berner...Dubious
innovations in medical financing are beginning to gain
attention in Washington. Lawmakers and the IRS are investigating more broadly
whether nonprofit hospitals provide sufficient free care to the uninsured to
warrant more than $50 billion in annual tax breaks. Senator Charles Grassley
(R-Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, says some new
financing arrangements appear to undermine the justification for tax-exempt
status enjoyed by more than half of the country's 5,700 hospitals. "I'm
very troubled by what we're seeing with some nonprofit hospitals' cozying up to
banks, debt buyers and credit card companies over patients' medical bills,
Grassley said in a statement to Business Week.
Email http://money.cnn.com...Foreclosures: Mayors See
Major Hit To Economy... Municipalities will start to
feel the pinch with a decline in the property tax growth rate. Some places
could even experience an outright decline in collections. The housing decline
will also affect state coffers, as transfer taxes plummet along with home sales
volumes. Florida could lose $589 million loss in property tax, $148 million
loss in sales tax and $99 million loss in transfer tax. Gross domestic product,
the group projects, will contract by $166 billion. The heaviest burden will
fall in New York, the nation's largest metro area, where the gross metropolitan
product (GMP) will go down by about $10.4 billion, according to the
organization. Los Angeles's GMP will drop by $8.3 billion and Dallas and
Washington will each experience $4 billion declines.
Email www.counterpunch.org... Homeless...By Stephen
Fleishman -- In the United States of America, the greatest country in the
world, as many as three and a half million people experience homelessness in a
given year (1% of the entire U.S. population or 10% of its poor) and of that,
1.37 million (or 39%) are children under the age of 18. The total number of
billionaires in the world is 793 with 371 of them being in the United States of
America, that's about 322 more than there were 20 years ago. If it can be said
that people with money and power run the world, then 1% of America's wealthiest
and most powerful run America behind a façade of democracy. The façade is
coming apart and the true nature of this government is plain to see. After four
years of a useless war, costing Americans their lives and treasury, and
enriching the multitude of corporate entities slurping up billions at the Iraqi
trough, we have allowed the new robber barons, Bush and his crony capitalist
friends to continue conning us out of house and home, our country.
Email www.alternet.org...There
are few choices more terrifying than the one Bush has left us. We have either a
president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War III
about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would
be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole, or we have a president too
transcendently stupid not to have asked, at what now appears to have been a
series of opportunities to do so, whether the fairy tales he either created or
was fed were still even remotely plausible. A pathological liar,
or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science
fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a
president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in
the vice presidency an unapologetic warmonger who has long been seeing a world
visible only to himself.
Email www.legitgov.org/
...CIA Admits It Destroyed Tapes of Harsh Interrogations --The CIA in 2005
destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency's custody, a step it took in
the midst of congressional and legal scrutiny about the CIA's secret detention
program, according to current and former government officials. The videotapes
showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects -- including Abu Zubaydah, the first prisoner in CIA custody -- to severe
interrogation techniques torture.
Email www.healthcare-now.org ... The mainstream Democratic candidates for President -- John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton -- have each put forward their proposals for affordable quality health coverage for all. None of these plans will truly provide universal access to care. They do not overcome the very significant deficiencies of private insurance. None assures the American people of comprehensive coverage, none offers a realistic way of containing the rising cost of health care, and all would add additional funds to an already too-costly system. They are at best a diversion from the direction we should be going, toward the creation of a single national, publicly-funded insurance pool that can provide comprehensive, continuous, cost-effective coverage along with the budgetary tools needed to begin containing costs.