George A. Sprecace M.D., J.D., F.A.C.P. and Allergy Associates of New London, P.C.
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RAPID RESPONSE (Archives)...Daily Commentary on News of the Day
This is a new section.  It will offer fresh, quick reactions by myself to news and events of the day, day by day, in this rapid-fire world of ours.  Of course, as in military campaigns, a rapid response in one direction may occasionally have to be followed by a "strategic withdrawal" in another direction.  Charge that to "the fog of war", and to the necessary flexibility any mental or military campaign must maintain to be effective.  But the mission will always be the same: common sense, based upon facts and "real politick", supported by a visceral sense of Justice and a commitment to be pro-active.  That's all I promise.
GS

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MONDAY through WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30 through JULY 2, 2003

So many opinions...so little time.  And professional obligations keep getting in the way.

GS

SUNDAY, JUNE 29, 2003

GS

SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2003

More on the situation in Iraq.  Please see my Rapid Response dated May 30, 2003.  Since then, there have been more killings, even assassinations of our soldiers.  And it is now clear that some Iraqiis are acting to sabotage the recovery of their own country. Do we need any more reasons for massive and harsh counter-action?  And when are the majority of moderate Iraqi citizens going to earn their freedom from despotism by discharging their responsibility to suppress their criminal and pro-Saddam terrorist elements?  Two articles on this subject are worth reading: "Chaos in Iraq...", by Trudy Rubin; and "Rumsfeld: Not the Army's Favorite Boss", by Philip Terzian, both articles in The Day, Friday, June 27, 2003, Commentary, pA11.   Meanwhile, the Democrats continue carping on the sub-text of WMD's, not realizing that this war is far from over and that Americans unite behind their leaders during wartime.  It's not a reach to suggest that they are giving aid and comfort to our enemy at this time.

GS

FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2003

GS

THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2003

Three items in today's news deserve comment:

GS

SUNDAY through WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22 through 25, 2003

Sorry about the interruption.  Duty called. A lot of news in the interim.

GS

SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 2003

GS

FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 2003

GS

WEDNESDAY and THURSDAY, JUNE 18 and 19, 2003

GS

TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2003

GS

MONDAY, JUNE 16, 2003

This is about the House of Medicine, the medical profession.  Among professions and career choices, including the Clergy, physicians rate highly for integrity and for results.  But there are problems.  The medical malpractice climate has produced a bunker mentality, not new (read "conspiracy of silence", still alive and well in some specialties) but worsening.  The value-neutral education of some younger physicians in their formative years has resulted in some of them forgetting the maxim "above all, do no harm" and supporting  "physician-assisted suicide", an oxymoron if there ever was one.  And then there is the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which for  many years has been pro-abortion, and has even been in favor of partial birth abortions!  What's wrong with that picture?  What a shame.  But there's more...the AMA also is against outlawing these abominations. Then they wonder why the membership of the AMA has declined to its current state, representing fewer than one-third of practicing  physicians.  There is a message here: "For your health care, choose...don't settle".

GS

SUNDAY, JUNE 15, 2003

Happy Father's Day, to all fathers out there, and to the Mothers who made that exalted state possible.
If there is any role, or ministry, that depends immeasurably on one's own experience as a son, being a father is it.  And for that I daily thank my father, a kind, patient and wise man who was my friend and mentor for all of his 72 years.  "Forte e Gentile", as was the motto of his native Abruzzi and the best description of the man.
It is a great pity, and in some quarters a great disaster, that so many men today face the challenge of fatherhood without such example.  The reasons are many.  Just one set of reasons was well articulated by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynahan in the late 1960's - in return for which he incurred the lingering wrath of a whole group of our population and their enablers.  But forget the prospect of their admitting now that they were wrong and that he was right.  They simply continue perpetuating the disaster, as over 50% of American "families" are now single-parent (read "fatherless") entities.
Something else should be made clear here.  Becoming and being a father does not simply mean contributing to a child's DNA;  in fact, it does not require that at all.  And there is a big difference between "fathering" and "siring".  The former is a deep and lasting human relationship.  The latter, without more, is simply an animal act.
And then there are those who actually kill their offspring by condoning or even demanding abortion!  What do we call them?
So, "Happy Father's Day" is by no means a knee-jerk acclaimation. For those of us who have earned it, enjoy the day - and our blessed life.

GS

SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 2003

GS

FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 2003

The bad weather we in the Northeast have been having this Spring should not surprise us: after all, in Washington D.C it is Christmas in June.  Look at all the give-aways being debated and passed by Republicans and Democrats alike.  Want to give a fish instead of a fishing pole to our poorer citizens?  Just call it a tax credit, even if they do not pay taxes.  Want to add drug benefits to a Medicare system having real trouble paying its existing bills?  Give it to everybody, regardless of need or rational allocation.  Every one of the elderly has a vote, right?  (By the way, there's an election coming).  We have come to expect this from Democrats; but will the real Republicans please stand up - the ones with principles, that is!

GS

WEDNESDAY and THURSDAY, JUNE 11 and 12, 2003

What a shame.  The Israel - Palestine conflict continues to kill innocents and guilty alike and to inflame the entire Middle East.  This cannot be treated with the perennial neglect with which the conflicts and atrocities in Africa are being handled, currently notably in Congo.  This is, after all, the birthplace of three major religions; and then there is the matter of the oil!   So why do all parties involved continue to insist on ignoring the several elephants in the room?  Israel will never be the Israel of the Bible.  It must vacate all the illegal settlements, including the more substantial settlements, and it must do it Now.  Palestinians and other Arabs will always have a vibrant, powerful, and democratic Israel in their midst.  That is not negotiable.  For reasons of reality, there will be no "right of return", no matter how unjust that seems to all fair-minded people; and the neighboring Arab States must reconcile themselves to absorbing these poor people.  A viable Palestine will exist next to Israel.  That is also not negotiable.  Arab terrorist attacks,  perceived as such by most Arabs and non-Arabs alike, must stop Now. Until that happens, Israel has every right to pro-active self-defense.  And both Israel and the Palestinians must resort to effective internal force, if necessary, to suppress those citizens among them who would rather fight than switch.  Will that lead to civil wars? Possibly, but probably not, especially if a U.N.- U.S. force is introduced on the ground to assist both sides with their tasks in an even-handed way ( and not the way the French are operating in the Congo).  Remember: the U.S.A. required a revolution and a civil war to resolve its own problems before emerging in its present state.  How long do we have to wait before all the players with power get real about this?  On the answer to that question depends the security of the Middle East and of the entire world.

GS

MONDAY and TUESDAY, JUNE 9 and 10, 2003

There are some signs that our leaders at the Pentagon are starting to re-assess their projections for American military needs.  "Shock and Awe" and technology can go just so far.  Witness the difficulty are forces are having in establishing order and in supressing violence in Iraq, largely because there are not enough of them on the ground to deal with crowds and with mob violence.  Witness the totally predictable drop in National Guard and Reserve enlistments and re-enlistments after the recent excessive reliance on these "reserves" for first-to-go service.  Witness the news that we are about to re-deploy many of the tens of  thousands of our troops in Germany to areas where they can be better utilized.  Once again, we have to get real and not try to have security in this ever more dangerous world on the cheap.  What we need is re-instatement of the draft, for all male graduates of high school and for all willing female graduates.  This could be a win-win situation, especially if the first of a two or three year tour is structured for both military and remedial education, in preparation for being able to read the military manuals - problematic for some graduates - and for future higher education. I kid you not: this could work very well.  But expect some knee-jerk objections from some old military war horses and from some demagogic objections from "the usual suspects".  Meanwhile, a couple of years in the military during a formative time of life is just what the last two generations of young people have missed - to their detriment and to ours.

GS

SATURDAY and SUNDAY, JUNE 7 and 8, 2003

GS

FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 2003

GS

THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 2003

Once again the sad soap opera called Public Education is in the news.  It seems that some of the billions of dollars available through the Federal legislation called "No Child Left Behind" is being declined by some school districts, as in Michigan, because their availability has been tied to evidence of effective results.  What a quaint idea, and totally foreign to the Education Establishment.  These members of the articulate, arrogant and asinine "enlightenment" whom we have had to suffer through the last fourty years, are also using arguments like "art vs. science of teaching" and "local vs Federal control". Now suppose that the practice of Medicine had also developed as a group of fiefdoms where top-down control totally stiffled the professionalism of millions of good teachers through the decades; where adverse outcomes were all dismissed as "Acts of God" with no personal or institutional responsibiity acknowledged; where raw research was done on human beings with no controls and no accountability; where "local control" was able to ignore broad national and international developments in the field on the basis of "Art" trumping science.  Where would we be?  We practitioners of Medicine would be in jail...that's where we would be.   And that's where we would belong.  Wake up, America.  All those kids without a clue around us will be voting soon.  That will not be democracy.  That will be mob rule.  So, support actively the breakup of the perverse monopoly called Public Education with the only effective tool at our disposal...Competition.

GS

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 2003

How's that for a "stage whisper"!  President Bush said yesterday exactly what needed to be said about what Israel will, at long last, have to do to obtain its peace and security.  It's too bad that some Arabs still do not accept the permanence of the State of Israel.  That fact will always be underwritten by the U.S. and by the Western world, especially in the face of terrorism.  The only question is when there will be a State of Palestine, also viable and with peace and security - as there should be.  Meanwhile, back at home, the so-called Christian Right...and those "Christians" to the right of them...insist on continuing to give Israel a blank check for their actions...including all the illegal and politically stupid settlements which have been the gasoline for the fires in that area.  I am happy to say that Roman Catholics forever consider Jews their religious and historical brothers.  But we also know that "He Who Seeks Equity Must Do Equity".  So Don't count us among the "Christian Right" on this issue.

GS

MONDAY and TUESDAY, JUNE 2 and 3, 2003

At times,  there is nothing to respond to.  At other times...

GS

SUNDAY, JUNE 1, 2003

At times, something just needs to be repeated, and repeated and repeated...to get the idea across.  The idea is why we went into Iraq.  The Democrats (having begun the 2004 political compaign), the French (trying desperately not to be seen as passe' in the New Europe), and other fellow-travellers keep insisting that the over-riding reason was to remove WMD's, weapons of mass destruction, which the world had a decade of reasons to know were being produced (and used) in Iraq. And now, when Deputy Defense Paul Wolfowitz recently made the frank statement, in an interview with Vanity Fair, that WMD's were emphasized as the "one issue that everyone could agree on", the U.S. is accused as having lied to the world.  What #@^^$%&*!  Get used to it, people: the main reason was and will be the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive self-defense.  We Americans are not going to go around  our neighborhhood, our nation and the world with targets plastered on our backs.  And we will find more evidence of WMD's, in time.  So, I regret having had to return to this topic.  But he who allows the opponent to articulate the issue has thereby determined the negative outcome.  That won't happen here.

GS


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