Monthly Archives: May 2010
La Traviata in a Philadelphia Market
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th May 2010Earlier this month I linked to the opera company of Valencia performing excerpts from La Traviata in the central market. Well, it’s spreading. Here’s the Opera Company of Philadelphia singing the brindisi from the same opera in a local market.
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Recording of the Week: Hummel Piano Sonatas 2 and 5
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th May 2010Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778 – 1837) was one of the most celebrated musicians of his time. Born in what was then Hungary but is now Slovakia, Hummel was a child prodigy. He soon found his way to Vienna where he lived and studied with Mozart for two years. He also studied with Haydn and Salieri….
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Brazil's Income Tax
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th May 2010Secretary of State Hilary Clinton just gave a speech in which she said: The rich are not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing the kind of employment issues (the United States is), whether it’s individual, corporate, whatever the taxation forms are. Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere…
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Is Kayexalate Safe and Effective?
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th May 2010Ion-Exchange Resins for the Treatment of Hyperkalemia: Are They Safe and Effective? is the title of a Clinical Commentary in this month’s Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Kayexalate is the brand name of the commonly prescribed cation exchange resin sodium polystyrene sulfonate (SPS) used to treat hyperkalemia (high blood potassium). The drug was…
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Armida Not Live in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th May 2010I was out of the country when Rossini’s rarity Armida was telecast live from the Met May 1. Accordingly, I went to the repeat broadcast. Never before performed at the Met Rossini wrote the piece in 1817 for Naples’ San Carlo as a vehicle for his future wife Isabella Colbran. Renée Fleming was the reason…
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Honda's New Mobility Device
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th May 2010[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S_SL8IWObY] I don’t know if this is going to catch on, but it’s a clever idea. It likely shows where we’re headed in helping people who have difficulty walking.
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Progress With An Artifical Pancreas
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th May 2010For decades physicians have wondered why the development of an artificial pancreas has been so slow. Such a device should be the perfect treatment for patients with type 1 diabetes. An artificial pancreas would combine the already available insulin pump with a sensing device that would monitor blood sugar thus enabling insulin to be infused…
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How Many Primary Care Doctors Do We Need?
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th May 2010We have too many specialists and need more primary care doctors is a mantra repeated so many times that one has to doubt its veracity. What’s the metric by which we determine how many doctors we need and by which we assign their tasks? There doesn’t seem to be one separated from divination. Consider this…
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Donald Berwick Nominated to Head CMS
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th May 2010Dr Donald Berwick has been nominated by President Obama to be director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Dr Berwick as the video below shows has some extreme views. He is guilty of a common error in logic – the exclusion of alternatives. In his view the only alternative to the US medical…
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Thought of the Day
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th May 2010Man’s longing is for an ordered society of fellowship and love. This is something the state cannot create or maintain. Man accepts the authority of positive law because order is preferable to anarchy and chaos; but in law man seeks some vestiges of a higher justice.. Augustine of Hippo (St Augustine) City of God
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