Opera, schmopera

Speed Racer got really mad at Mozilla Firefox, which is my favorite browser, just because it lost all his bookmarks. For the third time. He tried a number of other browsers, and decided to use Opera. It was open on the computer last night, and I used it to post to this blog. Let's just say Opera and Blogger are not friendly with each other. It's back to Mozilla for me.

iPhone Parenting

Speed Racer and I went to a house-warming on Saturday. The couple whose house it was are much younger than us, and a lot of their young friends were there. One of these young couples had a 21-month-old toddler, a really cute little girl. Being 21 months old, she was ready to explore this new house, grab all the nick-nacks, and try to eat all the unsuitable-for-toddlers food that had been put out for the party. Mom and Dad hadn't brought any toys for her, or food suitable for her, and after she had entertained herself for a good long while playing with the ice in the drinks coolers, she started to get a little whiny and bored.

No problem, Dad said, and he pulled on an iPhone. She relaxed on his lap, and started watching what Dad said was an educational cartoon, which was supposed to be teaching her the letters of the alphabet. She sat there, first on Dad's lap, and then on Mom's, mesmerized by the tiny animated characters on the tiny iPhone screen. Conversation turned to other topics, including somebody else's child who apparently is gifted. Mom and Dad opined that little Samantha was also gifted, as she already knew almost all her letters from watching this cartoon over and over.

Now, my kids watched way too much TV when they were little, and probably of all the wrong sort. But I never remember them being so passive in front of the tube -- they were either playing with toys or each other when it was on, or were interacting with it -- laughing at it and talking back. We often used the thing as baby sitter so dinner could get made, etc.

But watching this Gen Whatever-comes-next kid passively tuned into the iPhone made me into the worst sort of parental critic. I wanted to tell them that no child ever learned to read from watching cartoons, that 21-month-old toddlers shouldn't need an iPhone to keep them occupied, and that they should have brought some toys in the diaper bag. But I kept my mouth shut.

Whether iPhone parenting is what is going to rescue the US from being the educational back-water we have become, or whether it will lead to a generation of kids who really will be prepared for the complexities and technology of tomorrow, I almost forgot one key thing. Parenting is hard. Kids are wonderful, and and they light up your life, and only a few people ever admit that some days they wish they they had never become parents. But being a parent, especially being the parent of a toddler who is establishing her independence and is insatiably curious about everything she encounters, is really hard. If you find something that will keep your toddler quiet and occupied long enough for you to cook dinner, or have an adult conversation at a party, you will go for it, and you will keep going for it for as long as it works. And old people like me, who have forgotten how hard those days of parenting toddlers are, should keep their mouths shut.

Culture, popular and otherwise

I finally did watch the first two episodes of Californication.  It is absolutely filthy!  And decadent, and not morally redeeming in any way.  David Duchovny's character, Hank, is immature, selfish, lazy, a bad parent, and obsessed with sex.  I am really looking forward to the next episode.  

This show also demonstrates that David Duchovny can act.  As much as I loved him in the X-files, I was never sure if he was acting or just being himself.  But Hank is so totally different from Mulder.

On the literary front, my current books are Summer Night (the 4th on the Dresden Files series) which i said I wasn't going t read any more of, but they're sort of addictive, and The Kite Runner, which is as good as people say it is.  
 
I finished Cell when I was on vacation.  Not to spoil it for everyone, but that's really a cliff-hanger ending!

Friends in Literary Places

A friend of Second Son's who is a sophomore at Bard College runs this on-line literary journal: The Dove Cote. Check it out!

Summer's Over

well not really, but this week has been cold and rainy, and school is just around the corner for Third Son.
At work we have just started planning our goals and objectives for 2008, so it doesn't just feel like summer's over, it feels almost as if the year is over!
I saw Halloween candy in the grocery store last night.
And Third Son has been agitating for an iPhone for Christmas. (Which is SO not happening.) I thought teenagers didn't plan ahead!
I understand that it is just one more sign of advanced age when time seems to go faster and faster.

The War we Don't Need

I've been reading a lot of Medblogs over the past few days. Physicians are having a hard time, what with insurance companies second-guessing their every move, a need to be "productive," patients who either know nothing or know too much, and a malpractice environment that is out of control.
It seems that physicians see the pharma companies as one more group lined up to to be out to get them. We're really not in favor with physicians. Our sales practices are disruptive and viewed as manipulative. Our research is automatically suspect, because we funded it. Our prices are too high for patients. We bring out too many "me-too products" and not enough innovative ones. We advertise directly to consumers, who then worry unnecessarily, or pressure their doc for medicines they might not really need.
But the truth is, we're in this together. We need physicians to recognize which patients would benefit from our products and prescribe them. We need physicians to conduct the "unbiased" research that we can't conduct, just because we're too close to our products. We need physicians to tell us where the unmet medical needs really lie.
And physicians need pharmaceutical companies and their products. Without drugs and vaccines, old and new, there is little a physician can do to help many patients, other than cutting, or watching and waiting.
Maybe we should get to know each other a little better.

Old lust

back in the day, I used to be obsessed with the X-Files. Okay, actually, I was obsessed with David Duchovny. He has a new show on Showtime, Californication. Apparently it is very funny. I don't know yet, I forgot to watch it last night because I was posting my rant about John Edwards. But a repeat is being DVR'd tonight.

John Edwards is getting on my nerves

I really want to like John Edwards. Not that I can vote in the Presidential Election, what with me being an unrepentant Brit, but I do like to have someone to root for in an election. And I'd like to root for John Edwards. But he's really getting on my nerves. It's not the hair, although it's definitely better than mine. It's the way he talks about pharmaceutical companies.

I've heard him do it several times -- here's one quote: "Big insurance and pharmaceutical companies are writing our health care policies to ensure their own profits, not their customers' well being, while 45 million Americans go without health insurance and premiums skyrocket for everyone."

By this (I think) he means that pharma company lobbyists have undue influence in Washington, thereby contributing to the mess of the US healthcare system. Those poor Senators and Congress members are of course unable to resist the wiles of these evil lobbyists.

But what really bugs me is when he lumps together pharmaceutical companies, oil companies and tobacco companies in his litany of evil corporations. Why not throw in liquor companies and casinos while you're at it, John? Not to mention those big food corporations that market sugar disguised as cereal to our kids.

Now, I am of course completely biased on this topic. I work for a big pharma company. I wouldn't work for a tobacco company, a liquor company, or a sugar cereal company. Here's what we do that is so evil. We invent, develop, manufacture and market medicines that help sick people get better. For this work we have the audacity to expect that our inventions will be covered by a reasonable patent life. We also expect people to pay money for our products It takes about ten years (or longer) for us to bring a new product to market, and it costs nearly a billion dollars. (Though I'm not a finance expert, I can't figure out how you can spend a billion dollars to bring a drug to market and then give it away, or sell it for "generic" prices.)

In the current environment, our products are expected to be very effective, very innovative, and safer than liquor, cigarettes, automobiles, or sugared cereal. If they're not, trial lawyers like John Edwards will sue the pants off us.

John Edwards has proposed that pharmaceutical companies not be allowed to patent their products. Instead he would like to establish a "blue-ribbon panel" that would identify areas of unmet medical need and award prizes to companies that develop drugs to meet those needs. Who would fund those prizes? Would they at least cover the development of the drugs? That's crazy talk, man. This business is hard enough.

I know a lot of people who work for pharmaceutical companies. Almost all of them are in the business because they want to help patients -- patients like Elizabeth Edwards. Are there some who are in just for money? Sure there are. Are there better ways out there to ensure that pharma continues to meet unmet medical need and develop innovative new products? You bet, there have to be, or we'll all be out of business before long.

Pharma employees are young and old, healthy and sick, executives and blue collar workers, Democrats, Republicans, Americans and British, and Swiss , etc, etc.

But we are not evil.

Back to Reality

Yes, we're back. Vacation is over. It was great, even though it was hot in Florida, as advertised.
Coolest thing: watching the launch of the space shuttle from Cape Canaveral Beach. See that little dot? That's the space shuttle. Even cooler: hearing the sound of the space shuttle launch. It's hard to remember when you see that light climbing in the sky and hear that amazing noise that there are real people riding to space. I hope they fix their little hole in the heat shield and get home safely.

This vacation was a mini-reunion with Speed Racer's family who are not really family. Several years ago, while doing genealogy on the Racer family we met other "Racers" on-line. We have attended two "Racer" reunions - one in Germany, and one here in the US. Speed Racer found some second cousins he didn't know he had, and we also met some folks that must be related to him in some way that we don't know yet who are really terrific people. We invited two of these couples to join us in Florida, and we had a lot of fun together (also a lot of beer.) We are already thinking about hte next mini-reunion -- maybe in Las Vegas?

(I hope Baby Sister is not reading this because she really wants to go to Disney too, and she will be invited next time we go -- I promise!)

Yay vacation!

We (me , Speed Racer, Third Son and Third Son's friend Shawn) are leaving for Disney tomorrow morning. Yes, it's hot in Florida this time of year. But not any hotter than Philly!
First Son and his Girlfriend are holding down the fort at home. Hopefully, there will be no sign of Devil Dog.

CSI: Morton

Last night the Wawa where First Son and his Girlfriend work was robbed. First Son was there when it happened, although he wasn't involved. Apparently, a drunk felt he needed the money in the register. He didn't have a weapon, but he was threatening, so he got the money. By the time he left the store, a customer had called 911 and the cops showed up almost immediately (they were probably on their way there when they were dispatched -- they are in and out of the store all night.) He was caught two blocks away, and resisted arrest, so he's facing a long list of charges.

I am just grateful that First Son wasn't involved, that there was no weapon, and that his Girlfriend wasn't working last night. She wouldn't have taken it so calmly.