Monday, September 29, 2014

Jeter & Humility






All photos©2014 Am Ang Zhang 

Who would have believed a kid from Kalamazoo, Michigan by way of Pequannock Township, New Jersey, would ever achieve such levels of greatness? And with such humility to boot. Jeter has played 2,903 major league games in his career and never been ejected once. He doesn’t believe in anger. Only love. Love of the game. The true beautiful game. The last beautiful game.                                                                                      USA TODAY



Sunday, September 28, 2014

BBG: Last of the Summer Flowers.






Brooklyn Botanic Garden©2014 Am Ang Zhang 

Book I recently read: A Real Superhero! 

Chris Hadfield: An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth

 

You can visualize success all you want, but when things go wrong you won’t be prepared. Far from being cynical, visualizing failure is pragmatic — it might save your life in space, but it might help you attain your own goals right here on Earth.




A unique picture book consisting of 20 beautiful 9 x7 in. full bleed photos by the author of: corals, turtles, anhinga, blue tang, file fish, butterfly fish, cleaner shrimp, pompano, barracuda, flounder, star fish, and sting ray. A first of the kind tale of aquatic creatures in child-speak. A good introduction of nature to a young child, especially good as a follow-up to a visit to the aquarium; plus two pages of detailed companion









A coffee table quality photobook for a special child, introducing wild life in Africa. Photos of the animals (impala, nyala, kudu, wildebeest, warthog, gruffalo, zebra, rhinoceros, waterbuck, hippopotamus, giraffe, buffalo, elephant, saddlebilled stock) were taken by the author himself during safari trips in Africa.






Wednesday, September 24, 2014

NHS:Your Money in their Pocket!

Gerhard Schröder:
As Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder was a strong advocate of the Nord Stream pipeline project, which aims to supply Russian gas directly to Germany, thereby bypassing transit countries. The agreement to build the pipeline was signed two weeks before the German parliamentary election. On 24 October 2005, just a few weeks before Schröder stepped down as Chancellor, the German government guaranteed to cover 1 billion euros of the Nord Stream project cost, should Gazprom default on a loan. Soon after stepping down as chancellor, Schröder accepted Gazprom's nomination for the post of the head of the shareholders' committee of Nord Stream AG, raising questions about a potential conflict of interest.

He is currently the chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG.


Andrew  Lansley
The former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley blocked an attempt to hold a Parliamentary debate into the influence of an NHS lobbyist who he has admitted to knowing “over many years”.
Today The Independent revealed that NHS bosses allowed a lobbying company run by John Murray to write a draft report which could help shape future health policy.
But attempts to get the report’s origins debated in Parliament were blocked by Mr Lansley, who is now Leader of the House of Commons and in charge of scheduling legislation and debates.
The issue was raised by the Liberal Democrat MP Tessa Munt last month.
But Mr Lansley rejected her request replying: “I know John Murray, I know him over many years to be, in personal terms, someone very expert in relation to specialised healthcare issues. The responsibility lies I think with NHS England and it is their job to exercise a dispassionate and impartial approach to the making of policy.”


Jeremy Hunt:

So there’s Jeremy newly installed as Health Secretary after just seven short years as an MP. This is a summary of his meteoric rise:

He made a fortune at the taxpayers’ expense as monopoly supplier to a notorious quango where, by happy coincidence, his cousin sat on the Board. He became MP for SW Surrey where, by happy coincidence, his cousin had been MP previously. He became Minister in charge of Media & Culture where, by happy coincidence, he wound up steering his pals at Newscorp in the right direction. And he became Health Secretary partly because, by happy coincidence, his cousin is a lobbyist for the private health sector.

Virginia Bottomley: Secretary of State for Health 1992-95   now with BUPA. Cousin  of  Jeremy Hunt.


David Miliband



Like his mentors Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, Mr Miliband is one of that unappetising breed of modern politician that has chosen to profiteer out of public service. It is a pity that the BBC did not ask him whether his sudden decision to abandon his constituents was not informed by a desire to keep his huge earnings out of the public eye.
During his short, undistinguished career, Mr Miliband has done grave damage to British politics. He is part of the new governing elite which is sucking the heart out of our representative democracy while enriching itself in the process. He may be mourned in the BBC and in north London, but the rest of us are entitled to form a more realistic view. David Miliband has belittled our politics and he will not be missed.
Money? Really?
The House of Commons register reveals that he has earned an incredible sum – nearly £1 million – from outside interests since losing the party leadership to his brother, including £125,000 for 15 days’ work as a director of Sunderland, a constituency-based football club owned by a super-rich businessman with interests in private equity. Approximately £60,000 has come his way from the UAE, a gulf state with an unappetising human rights record, and another hefty chunk from St James’s Place, a company that advises very rich people how to invest their money.
It looks as though these people are everywhere! The Shadow Elite.

Are you ready to read it? 

Why?

It is scary!!!

"The new breed of players," writes Wedel, "who operate at the nexus of official and private power, cannot only co-opt public policy agendas, crafting policy with their own purposes in mind. They test the time-honored principles of both the canons of accountability of the modern state and the codes of competition of the free market. In so doing, they reorganize relations between bureaucracy and business to their advantage, and challenge the walls erected to separate them. As these walls erode, players are better able to use official power and resources without public oversight."
"That's a spot-on description of what happened with health care -- as well as a spot-on description of the totally-lacking-in-transparency bailout of the financial system. Remember how the bailout was supposed to take care of not just Wall Street but Main Street? Well, the former ended up with record profits and bonuses while the latter is looking at double-digit unemployment -- and millions of foreclosures and bankruptcies -- for the rest of the year."

Perhaps the decade!
                                            Janinie R. Wedel is an anthropologist.


"We Are Wall Street" that circulated this spring, directed at Main Street America

: "We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we'll eat that."


The 21st century power brokers -- less stable, less visible, more peripatetic, and more global in reach than their elite forebears -- are potentially more insidious and dangerous to democracy. Their manoeuvrings are largely beyond the reach of traditional monitors. Unlike the rest of us, these players are virtually immune to accountability to voters or government or corporate overseers, because the full range of their activities and their true agendas are more difficult to detect.                                      
  Janinie R. Wedel




Looks like they are here and targeting our much loved NHS.
       




“Interestingly, former health ministers have done particularly well. The ex-health secretary Patricia Hewitt earns more than £100,000 as a consultant for Alliance Boots and Cinven, a private equity group that bought 25 private hospitals from Bupa. After leaving the department, her predecessor, Alan Milburn, worked for Bridgepoint Capital, which successfully bid for NHS contracts, and now boasts a striking portfolio of jobs with private health companies.”

Alan Milburn

Following his resignation as Secretary of State for Health (to spend more time with his family, his partner is a hospital doctor), Milburn took a post for £30,000 a year as an advisor to Bridgepoint Capital, a venture capital firm heavily involved in financing private health care firms moving into the NHS, including Alliance Medical, Match Group, Medica and the Robinia Care Group. He has been Member of Advisory Board of Pepsico since April 2007. Wikipedia

 Alan Milburn now also holds a place on the board of PepsiCo as an advisor.        Wikipedia


Patricia Hewitt

In January 2008, it was announced that Hewitt had been appointed "special consultant" to the world's largest chemists, Alliance Boots. Such an appointment was controversial given Hewitt's former role as Health Minister, resulting in objections to her appointment by members of a Parliamentary committee. Hewitt will also become the "special adviser" to private equity company Cinven, which paid £1.4 billion for Bupa's UK hospitals.


In March 2008, it was announced that Hewitt will join the BT Group board as a non-executive director.[40] She joined the group on 24 March 2008. In July 2009, Patricia Hewitt joined the UK India Business Council as its Chair.



In May 2009 The Daily Telegraph reported that Hewitt claimed £920 in legal fees when she moved out of a flat in her constituency, stayed in hotels and then rented another flat inLeicester. Claimed for furniture including £194 for blinds delivered to her London home. In June 2009 Hewitt announced that she will be stepping down from the House of Commons. She said she was leaving the Commons for personal reasons as she wanted to spend more time with her family.   Wikipedia
David Bennett is the current head of Monitor (a sort of health FSA!) He is not a medical doctor.
David was a Director at McKinsey & Co. In his 18 years with McKinsey he served a wide range of companies in most industry sectors, but with a particular focus on regulated, technology-intensive industries.

Health:
Ex-Blair: Patricia Hewitt: now with Cinven (Bupa Hospitals)


NHS & Monitor: Eggs & Enron.

FSA:
Iceland:
Councils blamed over Iceland savings





Sunday, September 21, 2014

NHS: Enjoying the work!

 Just back from some nice snorkelling. It reminds me: one must enjoy ones hobby. What if work is your hobby too?










©2014 Am Ang Zhang 


         Fool or no fool, one needs to enjoy one’s work, even in the NHS.

         This perhaps is one thing that the government has conveniently forgotten. Many of us do what we do because we enjoy it. Otherwise why should anyone want to teach in universities when they can earn ten or twenty times more in industry? We may also decide to dedicate more time to work for personal pride and satisfaction. During the few years I worked at the inpatient units I spent in excess of a hundred hours a week there, one man doing the job of at least two.  In addition to that, I was still looking after two outpatient clinics. 

         With increased capacity, we were ready to take on transfers. At that time the Health Authorities still had decent managers not yet blinded by directives and performance targets. For a start these managers did not interfere with clinical matters. For our part we were free to exercise our clinical judgment.  Unfortunately many consultants abuse this privilege of clinical independence, often making excessive demands for treatments and investigations, and managers have learnt to ignore them.  Worse the government set up this organisation called NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) to try to deal with such behaviour.