Monthly Archives: July 2010

Jasper Quartet Shines in Ruidoso

The Jasper String Quartet gave a brilliant performance of works by Haydn, Berg, and Schumann before a sparse but enthusiastic audience at the Spencer Theater Friday evening July 30. Their challenging program began with Haydn’s Op 77 #1 in G Major. This was one of the genre’s supreme master’s last works in this or any…


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Trouble Updating Firefox

Joseph Schumepter (1883 – 1950) is famous for his use of creative destruction. He showed how capitalism innovates to create new and better systems which destroy their older competition. But after time and the departure of the innovators who created these systems, newer innovators arise who create even better systems that destroy what a short…


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Recording of the Week: Rudolf Serkin Plays Beethoven

Rudolf Serkin (1903 – 1991) was one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. Born in what is now the Czech Republic, Serkin was a child prodigy who made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic when he was 12. World War II caused him to emigrate to the United States where he lived for…


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Meaningful Use of an Electronic Health Record

As part of last year’s economic stimulus act congress passed the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH). “HITECH broadens the scope of privacy and security protections already available under HIPAA. This law also increases the potential legal liability for non-compliance and provides for more enforcement. HITECH requires data breach notification for…


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How to Put an Image In Gmail When Gmail Doesn’t Want to Let You Do It

There are many times when you’ll want to put a picture into an email. If you use Gmail this was hard to do until April of 2009 when Gmail made it easier, but not as easy as they should have. What you have to do is click the Settings tab. Make sure you are using…


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Free Medical Care

The federal government has decreed that many medical tests and some types of medical care must be provided by health insurance companies without any co-pays. Among the new “free” services are some which are clearly of no overall health benefit. For example, cholesterol screening (which is specifically mentioned as a test that must be provided…


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More on Diabetes and Tight Blood Pressure Control

In May I commented on a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that failed to show a benefit in lowering systolic blood pressure below 130 mm Hg. Well, now there’s another such study. This one is in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “Patients were categorized into 3 groups by their average…


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Recording of the Week: Galliano Masini

Though largely forgotten, Galliano Masini was one of Italy’s leading tenor’s in the 1930s. Many of the sopranos who sang with him thought his was the most beautiful voice of his era. Though one of them, Magda Olivero, thought him slow. She was not referring to his tempi, but to his mental faculties. Born in…


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Cesare Siepi 1923-2010

The great bass died in Atlanta on July 5. He came to prominence in the US at the age of 27 when he appeared in Rudolf Bing’s first production as General manager of the Met.  He portrayed Phillip II in Verdi’s Don Carlo. This performance (November 6, 1950) opened the season and was telecast. His…


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Logic and the Law

Jeffrey Rosen is a law professor at George Washington University and the legal affairs editor of The New Republic. He’s the author of a recent article in the New York Times which exemplifies a peculiar disaffinity between law and logic. In this article he professes a fondness for a positive vision of progressive jurisprudence. He…


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