Connections Planet.com

About a year ago, a small town near where I live was hit by a flood.  The day it hit I was at work.  Early in the AM a person came to drop off some merchandise.  From an earlier conversation, I remembered that he lived in the city that was flooding.  I asked and his house was already flooded.

I asked him if he could use a hand hauling stuff to “higher ground”. (when I got off work).  He said no thanks, and we left it at that.

A few days ago, he came in again (he has been in 2-3X per week since last year).  He got out of the car and shook my hand.  He said that it had been bothering him for the last year that he had not thanked me for offering to help him. 

It is too bad when an act of common courtesy, like offering to help a guy whose house is flooding, is still on the home owners mind a year later. 

Next time you run into someone who needs a hand, offer yours.  It will make you feel good!

Carl

In the Clinton era, years were spent in an attempt to push “socialized medicine” on the American public – and we, as a society did not want it.

Now, in the name of “stimulus”, President Obama is coming very close to accomplishing what the Clintons could not.

On pages 445, 454, 479 of the PDF version of President Obama’s stimulus bill is a provision to set up a new national office that will oversee the United States medical system.  According to the bill, medical records for every individual in the United States will be submitted by your family doctor.  On the positive side, this should help avoid duplication of tests and will make your records immediately available if you are admitted to the hospital.  That is the last good thing I am going to say about it.

The new government office, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will keep track of what your doctor is doing and make sure that treatments you receive are not only appropriate, but are also “cost effective”.   They will “guide” your doctor in your treatment to make sure that treatments are not given to you if they are too expensive related to your life expectancy.  (Pages 442-446).

In other words, if you are elderly and need a hip replacement, a government official will either ok or deny permission for your doctor to provide treatment based on how many years “they” assume you will be alive.

They will “guide” your doctors’ decision!  But, what happens if your doctor decides that you are very healthy and are probably going to live another 25 years?   The “stimulus bill” states that if your doctor or hospital is not following the “guidelines” the Department of Health and Human Services can impose  “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (pages 511, 518, 540, 541). 

Much of this provision in the  “stimulus bill” is modeled after a book written by Tom Daschles 2008 book “Critical – What We Can Do About The Health Care Crisis”.  In that book Daschel said that Americans expect too much from their healthcare system and praises Europeans who are much more willing to accept a medical diagnosis that you are not cost-effective to be treated.   

Are you ready for the Federal Government to determine the point at which a person becomes “disposable”?  I AM NOT!  I believe that the government is a servant of the people – not the other way around!

Please let your representatives in Washington know how you feel about this issue.

Carl

I have restrained from using this forum for expressing my political views, but that is about to “change”.

I am so disgusted by those who our new President is appointing, that have to back out because they do not have the ability to remember to pay their taxes. 

You pay your taxes. 

I pay my taxes. 

If “they” expect to earn a living on the backs of you and I, they need to pay their #@$% taxes.

I would like to encourage you to voice your opinion on this topic to your Senators and Representatives.  Let’s let Washington know that we expect more from our elected officials than we seem to be getting!

By the way, you can visit

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml and http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm 

to get accurate email addreses. 

Let’s let “them” know where we stand!

Carl

In January, 2008, connections Planet was still in the “about to go public” stage.  During that month the site had  342 page views.  Traffic continued to grow by a few hundred more page views per month, until December when we were at 13,417. 

I wen out on a limb and told the zip code managers that it looked like we were going to hit 20,000 page views in January.  We did not hit that number - we hit 25,969 total!  This site is no longer a “secret”.

We are up to about 65 zip code managers, which means that we have only about 33,440 zip codes left in need of a manager.  Anyone interested in a good “part time, work  from home income, while serving your community opportunity,  please visit http://www.connectionsplanet.com/zcm.htm .  Being a Zip Code Manager is an opportunity to serve your friends, neighbors, city officials and the businesses in town while having fun!   

Feel free to drop me an email if I can explain more about the opportunity to become a ZCM.   cforsell@connectionsplanet.com

Take care,

Carl

There have been some people apply to become zip code managers who have had second thoughts, but there are others who are moving forward.  Our ZCM’s to this point are:

Zip Code     Name

63901         Tammy Jameson
11368          Sherard Julien
86303          Shauna Hanus
27713          Roslyn Thompson
80234          Ludmila Ivanova
12590          Lauren Ambrose
12533          Katherine Warren
32578          Jessica Murphy
78259          Ioanna Rivera
98058          Emily Holm
99515          Deborah Bryner
24054          Cynthia Herndon
77511          Crystal Davis-Conerly
67144         Amy Knowles

Good Luck one and all…

Carl

I serve as the “adult sponsor” for the Norfolk (Nebraska) Youth Leadership Council.  This is a youth service organization made up of about 20 high school students representing all three of the high schools in Norfolk.  Sunday evening, the Christian bookstore in Norfolk had a “back to school parking lot event” (sorry, the exact title has dropped from my mind).  There were bands, food, booths and NYLC ran kids games. 

People ask me why I donate my time, when I already have a full plate.  To understand my motivation, all you would have to have done is to be there when the fathers of a “bunch” of kids came up to me and shook my hand and thanked “us” for “being so nice”.  It is such a pleasure to be associated with a fine bunch of young people who want to help the community.

As a sidebar, when was the last time you saw a bunch of teenagers pushing the state legislature for HARSHER penalties for those who supply alcohol to minors?  that is a project NYLC has taken upon its self…. 

Take care one and all.

Carl

Hi all,

And now for the news….  Traffic to our site is growing.  The table below is cut and pasted from our web server log.  The important thing to note is that today is only the 19th day of the month….  For a reason I can not explain, the number of pages reported for June was way out of line so I deleted it.

If any zip code managers would like to recieve a full copy of the log, just email me.

Let’s keep up the good work on getting the word out about the site!

Thanks to all

Carl