They want a doctor that knows them and sees their humanity

I finished the book Rough Sleepers, Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People, by Tracy Kidder. I had mentioned back in April that Kidder died at the age of 80, so this was his last book. Rough Sleepers refers to people sleeping on the street. Kidder spent quite a bit of time with Jim (as he’s referred to in the book) and his work. This is the way Kidder had worked with his previous books. Jim’s work included driving around downtown Boston with a small team looking for homeless people and offering them soup, extra blankets, and a bit of money. Other days he worked at the Mass General Hospital in a clinic for homeless people or at a separate clinic with rooms that cared for the homeless while they recovered from an illness. Jim found that the homeless want to see the same doctor each time, a doctor that would know them from one visit to the next and spend as much time as needed rather than limit themselves to the allotted time a medical system has as its standard. They want a doctor who cares for them as people rather than seeing them as a body to be treated. They want a doctor that treats them like a human rather than the dregs of society. I think we all want that. A couple of the staff at the clinic worked to get their people into housing. They know the system well enough they sometimes have success. Sometimes they don’t. Kidder includes a discussion of the housing first movement – get a person housed and that will make all their other issues easier to manage. In many places that works quite well, in others it doesn’t. Some communities try to spend the funds to end homelessness, again with good results. Other times it doesn’t work as well. A big issue is many lawmakers (I add: usually Republicans) who simply don’t want to spend the money, no matter the great benefits. And, yes, that implies they want people to be homeless. Kidder describes Tony, one of the homeless men. He’s a big man and a kind soul, one who will do all he can to help out his fellow rough sleepers. Homeless women appreciate him because he will protect and not exploit them. But he is also an addict. Using frequently lands him in the live-in clinic. When he recovers enough to function he’ll serve as a social director – helping other residents, stepping in to break up arguments, and just being a friend to everyone. After a few days he’s back on the streets using again. Attempts at getting him housed don’t succeed because of things in his troubled past. I very much enjoyed the book and recommend it. Kidder is a very good writer, able to explain things well while maintaining his subject’s humanity. Michigan news has periodic stories of the Palisades nuclear power plant in southwest Michigan. The plant reached the end of its useful life and was sold to Holtec, a company that would decommission it and, presumably, tear it down in a manner that would minimize radiation exposure. But perhaps a year or two later that same company decided instead of decommissioning the plant they would return it to operation. The stories I hear are about the latest steps in the process, something that has not been done before. Karl Grossman and Harvey Wasserman of the Daily Kos community discussed an open letter to Congress by Arnie Gundersen that explains the plant isn’t and cannot be made safe. Gundersen has extensive experience and certification in the nuclear industry. But in the last three years, as long has this venture has been going on, he has been rebuffed by the The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and many other people in the nasty guy’s administration. The issue: Holtec has experience decommissioning reactors. It does not have experience running them. Staff members are not certified for that. The reason Holtec wants to run this one is that nuclear plants have never been profitable and never been as safe as they claim. They run with a great deal of government subsidy. And getting hands on that cash appears to be profitable for Holtec. In contrast to the significant subsidies needed by nuclear energy wind and solar are much cheaper. Gundersen goes into detail on the problems in the plant. I’ll skip that. The likelihood of a failure within the first 18 months is high, a failure that would prompt an evacuation out to ten miles. Fortunately, there is no city in that zone, but Detroit is only 180 miles downwind with Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Jackson, Ann Arbor, and me in between. Gundersen hopes that Congress (or the one that takes control in January) will take him more seriously than the NRC has and stop Holtec’s efforts to revive the Palisades plant. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoting Jon Stewart’s response to the vice nasty blaming the French riots on Muslim immigrants. Those riots began with students protesting conditions at their schools and expanded to include people protesting the cost of living. Stewart said:

I’m sorry, Vance, are you seriously suggesting that immigrants have brought a culture of revolution and protest to France??? Have you not been to the theater? Can you not hear the people sing? Do you know why Versailles is a museum? It used to be someone’s house, full of people with heads! Do you want to know how French these protests were? They stormed the Bastille! Other than adultery, it’s the most French thing you can do.