Beautiful Mailbox Post
Pros: High Quality, Good Value, Durable
This mailbox post is so beautiful. We installed it with the Hummingbird Curbside Mailbox and the two go together great. We're so happy with the results. Our neighbors are jealous.
(legalese)
Originally submitted at More Mailboxes
Best mailbox in the neighborhood
Pros: Attractive Design, Sturdy
Describe Yourself: Novice
This is such a great mailbox. Our mailman even said that he likes it because it has an extra lip over top of the door so the water won't leak into the box on rainy days. We love it. The design and color is so beautiful and the box is very sturdy and well designed.
No complaints! We've installed it already with the Albion Mailbox Post and Floral Bracket. The two go nicely together.
(legalese)
How are you going to connect your support among young people to the governing process?
This is where the Internet is so powerful. One of the things that surprised me in this campaign is how well we were able to use technology to organize people. There's enormous promise — but we've just scratched the surface of what's possible when it comes to making government work for people. Virtual town-hall meetings, increasing transparency, accountability on legislation. You think about all the inefficiencies in government. We basically have a New Deal government in a 21st-century economy. We've got to upgrade it.So you're consciously aware that this will have to be part of how you govern?
Yes, absolutely. The Internet gives young people a tool to be informed continuously. It gives them an opportunity to speak to each other and mobilize themselves. It gives them the opportunity to hold me accountable when I'm not following through on promises that I've made. It gives me a powerful ally if Congress is resistant to measures that need to be taken.
There is so much wrong with health care that it is almost impossible to fix the existing system. And, in my opinion, we are focusing on the wrong things and blaming the wrong organizations for some of our problems.For example, health care reform often involves criticizing insurance companies for not paying for certain types of treatments. For the record, I'll state that insurance companies are guilty of many things and do their part to contribute to the poor state of health care today. But forcing these companies to pay for any treatment offered by drug companies and desired by patients may be causing our problems to worsen, not get better.
For example, I have written before about Avastin, originally approved for colorectal and lung cancers, and recently granted "accelerated approval" by the FDA for metastatic breast cancer. It's actually almost worthless for all cancers. Avastin extends life by a few months for colorectal and lung cancer patients, and about 5.5 months for metastatic breast cancer patients. The side effects, according to an article in The New York Times, include death. Offered by Genentech, the drug costs $92,000 per year. Genentech acknowledged in an editorial that it "does not claim that the drug is cost-effective for advanced breast cancer but believes it will be clearly worth the cost if shown effective in earlier stages of breast cancer."
In spite of this, Avastin has already been prescribed off-label to over 11,000 cancer patients with advanced breast cancer, and the recent FDA approval would increase the number of patients who qualify for it to 43,000. Genentech acknowledges that the drug only extends life for only a few months. Using half of the $92,000 annual cost of the drug (since patients are almost always dead within a few months), the revenues to Genentech for this drug have grown to a potential of close to $2 billion dollars per year. Where does the money to pay for this drug come from? Insurance companies and Medicare/Medicaid. And if some of our political candidates get their way, we will add universal health care coverage, meaning more taxpayer-financed reimbursement, to the pool of available funds.
This is not the only example. Billions of dollars are spent annually on unnecessary back surgeries and other procedures, mammography and other useless diagnostics, as well as drug treatments that are completely ineffective, and often hurt people. Can you blame the insurance companies for refusing to pay for this?
Unfortunately, the insurance companies also deny reimbursement for treatments that do work, such as dietary intervention. They've thrown the baby out with the bath water, attempting to deny coverage for anything different or progressive.
Insurance companies are in a great position to be innovators in the health care field if they decide t do so. They could develop policies for people who choose to practice dietary excellence and optimal habits, and reimburse these people for the counseling and other support needed to learn how to do so. There is evidence that this will work, and can save enormous amounts of money. The average patient who gets bypass surgery spends $86,364 over a 5-year period; the average patient who has angioplasty spends $63,897 during a comparable period of time. A consultation with Dr. Esselstyn (who has an excellent track record reversing cardiovascular disease through dietary intervention) costs $500; a membership to The Wellness Forum, complete with books, CD's and DVD's costs only $221. Reimbursing for these types of services and refusing to pay for bypass surgery and angioplasty unless the need is clearly demonstrated (it rarely is) would result in huge savings for both private carriers and Medicare.
I'm not upset with the insurance companies for saying enough is enough as it pertains to reimbursement for medical services that do not work. And I do not think universal health care, which will result in all of us as taxpayers shouldering more of the burden for useless diagnostics and treatment is the answer either. The answer is to continue to educate people to make different choices, and to target the purveyors of misinformation as the real culprits - our government, national health organizations, medical schools, unenlightened doctors and others who continue to promote ineffective and harmful treatment.
NOTE: This post is fairly old. One of my commenters below (Green) has given a solution that seems to be working for people more so than what I suggest here. I would say read my post briefly and then jump to his comment.
Maybe the critics are right. Maybe there's no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, where any attempt to alter the rules of engagement is futile.
Or maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diversion, a sport, with politicians as our paunch-bellied gladiators, and those who bother to pay attention, just fans on the sidelines. We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team -- so be it. For winning is all that matters.
But I don't think so.
They are out there, I think to myself, those ordinary citizens who've grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles but who've found a way, in their own lives at least, to make peace with their neighbors. And themselves.
I imagine the white southerner, who, growing up, heard his dad talk about niggers this and niggers that, but has struck up a friendship with the black guys at the office and is trying to teach his own son different; who thinks that discrimination is wrong, but doesn't see how the son of a black doctor should get admitted into law school ahead of his own son.
Or the former Black Panther, who decided to go into real estate, bought a few buildings in the neighborhood, and is just as tired of the drug dealers in front of those buildings as he is of the bankers who won't give him a loan to expand his business.
There's the middle-age feminist who still mourns her abortion, and the Christian woman who paid for her teenager's abortion, and the millions of waitresses, and temp secretaries and nurses' assistants and Wal-Mart associates who hold their breath every single month in the hope that they'll have enough money to support the children that they did bring into the world.
I imagine that they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and what cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility. Between those things that last, and those that are fleeting.
They are out there, I think, waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.
There is no doubt that alternative medicine is becoming a popular option among patients in the U.S. and Canada. We love it! We are choosing it in greater and greater numbers, even though we have to pay for many of these services out-of-pocket. Americans spend over $27 billion on out-of-pocket expenses on holistic healthcare each year. Fully one-third of us use some form of holistic services, and total visits to holistic providers exceed the number of visits to medical doctors each year.
But Western medicine is still considered the “major healthcare system” in Canada and the U.S. What will change this?
I've discovered that there are at least ten factors holding holistic healthcare back. In this article, I'll outline each factor, in the hopes that this will spur you, my readers, on to action to fix each of these ten issues.
#1 – Get Organized
Holistic healthcare, for all its popularity among clients, is extremely disorganized. In my city of Columbus, Ohio, we have various cliques of practitioners who isolate themselves from others and seem to consciously limit communication and interaction with other practitioners. I know this is true in many communities. Holistic healthcare must become a “profession.” It must have univeral standards, professional associations across modalities, and lots of professional networking. This is what makes Western medicine so powerful. They have a very organized and powerful professional association, in the American Medical Association (AMA) and they have strong links in to all levels of government and community. Holistic healthcare must do the same, although we must do it in our own way. We are an industry. We are professionals. We must act this way. We must get organized, professionally and politically.
#2 – Change the Laws
The laws in many U.S. states and Canadian provinces discourage use of holistic services. Here in Ohio, everyone from naturopaths to reflexologists to nutritionists are illegal, according to the letter of the law. It's antiquated, yes, but the licensure boards feel they must enforce these antiquated laws and they often do, shutting down legitimate practitioners who are helping their clients and not harming anyone, just because the law is wrong.
We've organized the Health Freedom Coalition of Ohio here in this state, and many other states have similar groups. Check the national Health Freedom Website for groups in your area. Join us in changing the laws to reflect the needs and wants of holistic healthcare patients and practitioners. As far as I know, no Health Freedom groups exist in Canada. However, international laws like those coming from Codex Alimentarius are threatening healthcare freedoms everywhere.
#3 - Reject the Gold Standard of Controlled Trials
Holistic healthcare is, by definition, holistic. Controlled trials, also called randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled controlled trials, are meant to measure patients' reactions to drugs. In a vain attempt to “fit in,” many holistic healthcare advocates are submitting holistic practices to these controlled trials to provide “objective proof” to Western doctors that these practices work.
Using positive results from controlled trials is a reasonable short-term strategy to making holistic healthcare pallatable to Western doctors and their followers, but it will not work in the long term.
The reason it can't work for holistic practices goes back to the nature of holism. A holistic practitioner treats a patient as a “whole person – body, mind, spirit, environment.” These aspects of the person are inseparable. You can't reduce a person down to a single organ, a single disease, or a single symptom. And, unfortunately, reductionism is inherent in the nature of controlled trials. Each controlled trial attempts to eliminate all “outside causes” and reduce the study down to “the effect of one drug on one part of the person.” This is categorically impossible in a holistic perspective.
Holistically, energy fields exist. We must take a person's energetic profile into account with their physical body. We must understand the person's relationships in the family and society. We must know their history. We must understand their mental state.
No controlled study can eliminate all these factors. Controlled trials are not the way to test holistic healthcare modalities. We must come up with a better way of testing our modalities, which is every bit as scientific and rigorous as controlled trials, but does not have the downsides.
#4 - Patients Need Road Maps
Holistic practitioners must be able to provide each patient with a road map of treatment, given the patient's problems and circumstances. This is a marketing issue. If the practitioner asks the patient just to “play along” with the practitioner tries this and that, patients will not likely stick with the program, because there really isn't a “program” that they can see.
Practitioners need to give patients an understandable set of steps that practitioner and patient will take together that are likely (although not guaranteed) to solve the problem at hand. The roadmap will include the services the practitioner can provide, the services needed from other practitioners, and the activities the patient needs to accomplish.
#5 - We Need Truly Integrative Clinics
A true integrative clinic is not just a bunch of practitioners sharing the rent and referring patients.
True integration means that a patient sees themself as a patient of the clinic, not a patient of a particular practitioner. The patient expects that the clinic will provide him with the right services at the right time, and feels that he is supported and led through the maze of various modalities to the right ones for his situation, background, needs and beliefs.
This means that the clinic has what I call a “holistic patient manager,” who is independent of holistic modalities and who's sole purpose is to guide the patient through the process of getting healthier. The patient manager works with the patient to create a road map (see Point #4) and answers their questions and concerns throughout the process.
It also means that the practitioners working in the clinic have faith in the overall processes, and are constantly giving their input to improve it. It means that practitioners compare notes on each patient and strive to give consistent advice to the patients (NOTE: HIPAA compliance on patient record confidentiality will be necessary.)
#6 – Practitioners Must Serve Their Clients' Need Above All
I've noticed that many practitioners feel that the main reason they are practicing their particular modality is for the love of that modality. For instance, a massage therapist feels that the whole reason for her practice is that she can “do the work she loves.” While it is important to do what you love, the main reason for a holistic practitioner's business is to serve clients. When times get tough, and the practitioner needs to do things that they don't love (taking out the laundry, collecting money, etc.), this incorrect focus gets messy. A practitioner must remember, first and foremost, to focus on the needs of the clients, and then to focus on enjoyment of the work. If this is backwards in the mind of the practitioner, the business will not survive.
Here's a test to see if your business is client-focused or modality-focused. Look at your list of services. If the list is simply a list of modalities (massage $50/hour, reflexology $60/hour, nutrition counselling $70/hour, etc.) then you are modality-focused. If your list of services is a list of client problems (fatigue revitalization $200, headache relief $250, etc.) then you are client-focused.
#7 - Health Insurance Must Change to Include Holistic Healthcare
The day that health insurance begins to include holistic practices will be a major step towards our becoming the major healthcare system in North America.
Health insurers are well-advised to include holistic practices like naturopathy, massage therapy and herbal remedies into their programs. Their insured clients will be healthier, will cost less, and happier.
However, there is a limit to what insurance should provide. Insurance, by definition, is meant for expenses that we (the insured) can't pay for ourselves. That means that when a car accident occurs, and my legs are broken in five places, this is a time for insurance. When I am diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, insurance needs to be there for me. When I fall down the stairs and need an emergency room visit, insurance should help.
But insurance is NOT for day-to-day health needs. The yearly or twice-yearly trip to the doctor or naturopath should NOT be covered by insurance. Monthly massage therapy appointments should not be included in health insurance, unless they are a defined part of a recovery from injury or trauma.
Why? Because if we include regular medical needs in our insurance plans, the costs will be unaffordable. There is no reason to pay your insurance company extra money, only to have them pay it right back to your doctor, naturopath, massage therapist or nutritionist. It doesn't make sense. The insurer will take their cut out of the money and you'll be paying much more for that regular care than if you had paid the practitioner out-of-pocket. Insurance has no place in the world of day-to-day prevention, health maintenance and wellness.
I feel very strongly on this point, and I hope that insurance companies take heed as they begin to step into the world of holistic healthcare. I've written a book on this subject called "Health Insurance Off the Grid," which you can reference at the bottom of this article.
#8 - Separate Holistic Healthcare From New Age Religion
To look at a person holistically, it means that you see the person's body, mind and spirit. The last one, spirit, seems to say that religion must somehow be involved in healthcare.
That assumption can be a costly mistake. Many Americans and Canadians are frightened of holistic healthcare for exactly that reason. They think the holistic practitioner will try to “convert them” to some new and exotic religion , which they don't want. They're perfectly happy being Protestants, Catholics or Muslims. They don't want religion encroaching on their healthcare, they just want a reiki session.
Practitioners must understand this. Religion of any type, but especially new age religions, must be kept away from the practices of holistic healthcare. Yes, spirit is involved in any type of healing, but that doesn't mean the practitioner needs to feature it front-and-center and go on and on about their particular religious icons, symbols and beliefs.
Mixing religion and healthcare is bad for business. I urge holistic practitioners to separate the two. Holistic healthcare will never thrive in the U.S. or Canada unless it is decoupled from religion.
#9 – Practitioners and Clinics Must Focus on Quality Marketing
The majority of holistic practitioners and clinics I've been exposed to have poor marketing practices. There often is no marketing plan, and the practitioners and clinic owners often have a distaste for the overall idea of marketing and sales.
No business can survive without high-quality sales and marketing. There does not need to be anything distasteful about marketing or sales. In fact, it is easy to see that these activities are actually “acts of love” in many ways.
I urge all holistic practitioners and clinic owners to learn everything possible about marketing and sales. The best sales training I've found is at the Sandler Sales Institute. You will not find a more “holistic approach” to sales. I can also say that the Sandler approach is decidedly a low pressure approach and something that anyone can feel comfortable working with in a holistic practice. Locally, here in Ohio, I can say for certain that the best sales training affiliate of Sandler Sales is Growth Resources, serving Central Ohio.
#10 - We Need High-Quality, Long-Term Apprenticeship Programs
In China, when a person decides to become a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine, they go to school to learn the basics and then they become an apprentice of an experienced practitioner for many years before striking out on their own. The same is true for ayurvedic practitioners in India.
Although North America has a variety of schools teaching various modalities from massage to acupuncture to polarity therapy to energy healing, we do not have any long-term apprenticeship programs. Holistic healthcare modalities that I've encountered are multifaceted, complex therapies that often require years to master. The best practitioners are those who have practiced for many years, and who have attended one training class after another, year after year. They also usually found a mentor who was willing to teach them the subtle details of the modality, the art of it.
If we are to produce high-quality practitioners, we need a strong apprenticeship program like China and India. This will take time to create and may be resisted by young practitioners who wish to jump into independent practice too quickly. But it's a very necessary step to making holistic healthcare more popular in North America.
These are my thoughts about the ten major problems facing holistic healthcare today. What can you do? Can you join a Health Freedom group in your area? Can you help your holistic clinic become more client-focused? Can you help to change health insurance to include holistic alternatives?
Please consider what you can do to help holistic healthcare to become the major healthcare system in North America. This is something that will save many lives, people who are now dying because they aren't being helped by drugs and surgery, and yet aren't aware of the options.
Daryl Kulak is the author of "Health Insurance Off the Grid", a book to help people buy health insurance that will maximize the out-of-pocket money available for holistic services and products.
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It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.
It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.
Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.
Deepak Chopra, well known New Age spiritualist, holistic health advocate and author, has provided a great insight into Barack Obama in his blog "Intent Blog."
The New England Journal of Medicine released a study recently that showed that heart attacks in hospitals are more often fatal than for people who have heart attacks elsewhere.
where he states that both carbon markets and carbon taxes are too problematic to be helpful in the long term battle against pollution. He sees a better alternative with establishing a commons trust. This would be where a third type of institution (not government, not private) is built in the United States (or any country) that is solely responsible for preserving the commons. In global warming terms, the commons refers to the atmosphere, clean water and healthy forests - the general ecosystem. The trustees represent all of us, including the future unborn generations, as well as the non-human species and the ecosystem itself. Their responsibility it to those stakeholders.
I received this article as an e-mail forwarded from a friend. I thought it was so appropriate for the holiday season and also for our work lives in general. I requested and received permission from the author to post it on my blogs. I don't think I have ever simultaneously posted something on both my blogs, but this article seemed to fit (for my "other" blog, see here):Counterbalance
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D.
During one of AT&T's many transformations, I interviewed the woman in charge of Employee Health Services to find out what she'd observed about the most resilient people in the organization. I asked her if she noticed anything that these employees had in common that helped them deal so successfully with change: Did they work in a particular geographic region? Had they reached a certain level of the hierarchy? Did they perform similar functions? Were they male? Female? Younger? Older?
The manager told me that none of those factors made a difference. She said, "People who thrive on organizational change have two things in common: They take good care of themselves and they have outside interests."
As I continued talking with professionals in thirty organizations (and seven industries), the same theme kept repeating in my interviews. People who were the most adept at dealing with organizational change, not only had a career -- they had a life.
A definition of the word compensate is "to provide with a counterbalance or neutralizing device." Change-adept individuals compensate for the demands and pressures of business by developing counterbalancing activities in other areas of their lives. They engage in exercise programs and healthful eating habits, they cultivate interests outside of the workplace -- sports, hobbies, art, music, etc. -- that are personally fulfilling, and they have sources of emotional support. Because employees with counterbalance have fuller, richer lives, they handle business-related stress better and are more effective on the job.
They also have a source of stability - external to the organization - which many refer to as their "anchor" or "rock."
One of the most memorable interviews I conducted on this topic was with the CEO of a cellular telephone company: "I've got one of those 'anchors' in my life," he told me. "It's my sock drawer." I must have looked startled because the CEO continued quickly. "I mean it," he said. "All hell can be breaking loose at work, but when I come home at night I open my sock drawer to find everything in color-coded, neat little piles. I tell you, it does my heart good."
I've included this story in my speeches for years, and only once have I had someone take offense at it. I had addressed the national convention of a real estate firm in Florida. A sales manager from California came up to me after the speech and wanted to book a similar program for his division. "I really enjoyed your talk," he said. "But when you speak to my group, please don't make fun of the sock drawer."
I told the sales manager that I would be happy to do as he asked, but was curious about the reason for his request. He looked at me sternly. "I don't want you to make fun of it because it works! I tell all of my sales people that if they are having a terrible day, where nothing is going right, they might as well go home and straighten out their underwear drawer."
After thinking about that comment, I had to agree. It doesn't matter if the source of counterbalance sounds silly to others; change-adept people know what works for them.
Leaders who encourage employees to develop counterbalance find that, beyond building a more change-adept workforce, there are additional business benefits. The president of CalTex in Kuala Lumpur told me that his company pays for any kind of training course that employees want to take -- the only exceptions being martial arts and cooking classes. He said that the most popular course is singing lessons. This was not totally unexpected since Malaysian employees regularly frequent karaoke bars after work. What he didn't anticipate, however, was the degree to which employees' singing lessons improved their ability in giving work-related presentations. People conquered stage fright and became comfortable with standing in front of groups and expressing their ideas. In fact, the only complaint from the president of the company was, "Now they think they can sing!"
So, as this holiday season progresses, remember to take good care of yourself. Encourage your staff, co-workers and team members to visit friends, to play, to laugh, to straighten out their underwear drawers - and to sing. Doing so will result in a more resilient organization. And that is very good for business.
Happy Holidays!
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., is a coach, consultant, and keynote speaker who helps her clients thrive on change. She addresses association, government, and business audiences around the world. She is the author of ten books including "This Isn't the Company I Joined - How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down." Her newest book, "THE NONVERBAL ADVANTAGE - Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work," will be published by Berrett-Koehler in May 2008. For more information, contact Carol by phone: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or through her website: http://www.CKG.com.
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Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D.
Kinsey Consulting Services
Carol coaches executives, facilitates management retreats, helps change teams develop strategies, and delivers keynote speeches and seminars to association and business audiences around the world. She can be reached by phone: +1-510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or through her website: www.CKG.com.
Author of nine books, including:
* This Isn't the Company I Joined -- How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down
* Ghost Story: A Modern Business Fable
* Creativity in Business
* Change-Busting: 50 Ways to Sabotage Organizational Change
* Adapting to Change: Making it Work for You
* The Human Side of High-Tech
This determinist approach toward agriculture as an industry rather than as a food source--toward the implications of everything from fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides to genetics, hormones, antibiotics, labeling, and sourcing--became the flash point for a far broader concern among citizens. This was the context in which a growing percentage of people judged the handling of key issues as different as mad cow disease, the availability of pharmaceuticals in the developing world, and global warming. They were beginning to feel that what was presented as an argument of Globalism versus protectionism was often just a confused opposition of personal choice and abstract corporate interests. So Globalization, put forward as a metaphor for choice, was organizing itself around not consumers but corporate structures, structures that sought profits by limiting personal choice.
We are ultra-stylish in appearance, yet comfortable in our shoes, and our skin. We encourage ecological responsibility, and promote inner peace, as we understand that this is from where external peace grows. We are the ladies who break all molds, and feel elated by, and proud of it.
We are intelligent, we are women of substance, and we are quite extraordinary, actually.
We are Glam-Granola girls.
