Pen-pricks
• The PBS series “Story of the English Language,” which first aired 30 years ago, has just been released on DVD for a new generation to enjoy. The language has really changed since it aired. Back in the Eighties, white privilege meant snorting cocaine through a rolled-up hundred dollar bill.
• HBO admits hackers broke into their network, made off with upcoming episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and is selling them on underground websites. These sites are a con man’s paradise. Someone on the internet is making millions this week selling people early bootleg copies of the eclipse.
• The Los Angeles Times reported the cannabis grower Go Green has purchased an entire town in California in hopes of making it a user-friendly tourist destination for enjoyers of the drug. They had to settle for a little town on the Nevada border named Nipton. Cocaine already bought Hollywood.
Argus Hamilton is the host comedian at The Comedy Store in Hollywood and a speaker. His email address is argus@argushamilton.com.
Think adults don’t need vaccinations? Guess again. An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 adults in the United States die from vaccine-preventable diseases or their complications each year.
During August’s National Immunization Awareness Month, the American Lung Association reminds adults that vaccine recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee include vaccines for potentially serious lung diseases like pneumococcal pneumonia and influenza. In addition, older adults and those with weakened immune systems or certain chronic health conditions — like asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) — are especially vulnerable to infectious disease. In fact, for adults 65 and older living with COPD, the risk for contracting pneumococcal pneumonia is 7.7 times higher than their healthy counterparts, and those with asthma are at 5.9 times greater risk.
Health officials recommend that everyone six months of age and older receive the flu vaccine every year. And all adults 65 years or older should receive pneumococcal pneumonia vaccination. Adults with risk factors for pneumococcal pneumonia are encouraged to take an online risk assessment at Lung.org/who-pneu, developed in partnership with Pfizer.
This year, don’t take your health for granted. Preventive health measures can save lives.
There’s a devil waitin’ just around the corner
He’s waitin’ there for folks like you and me
But he hides behind a name he calls temptation
He knows soon someone thinks his fruit is free.
That woman with the fruit stand is so crippled
She can’t defend her meager property
She can only hope she sells all of her apples
And staves away her bonds of poverty.
If the public only knew how much she suffers
To pick that fruit and load it on her cart
In reference to the letter to the editor in the 8/14 concerning Canadian health care, I would submit the following: Without getting into a tit for tat battle I would like to refer the readers to the readily available research they have available in their own homes. Ask the computer any question about Canadian health care and see what dozens of recent articles pop up. Canadians are eager to speak truth to the world about their plight.
2/17 the Toronto Sun reports Canada has the worst ER/referral wait times of 11 developed countries.
2/17 The Global News Network reports that Canada has five-month wait times to see specialists in 2016.
28 percent of Canadians made the choice not to go to a dentist because they could not afford it.
The Fraser Institute reports that Canadians in 2016 waited on average 46.9 weeks to get Neurosurgery.
They waited on average 38 weeks to get orthopedic surgery.
They waited 28.5 weeks to get ophthalmological surgery.
My point is not to denigrate Canadians in any way but rather to point out that a government system is not the answer. If you lift the edge of the covers and look into the Canadian system, you find that they are fighting a losing battle against a nightmare of problems with little hope of change in the near term.