Around The Sphere January 15, 2007

Our famous linkfest offering you links to sites with MANY different viewpoints. Links do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its cobloggers.

Does It Matter If It’s Called A “surge,” “escalation” or “augmentation?” YES, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Dick Polman writes on his blog. He makes the case that this indeed almost Orwellian. A small quote:

This battle over words may seem trivial, but it is not. Language is powerful. Whoever captures the language has the power to frame an issue. Which is why the Bush camp has now unveiled augmentation, a word that sounds more benign than escalation, which still carries the stench of a certain lost war in the jungle.

The Bush administration has long understood the importance of word play, which is why, among many examples, it has long sought to redefine the privatization of Social Security as a push for “personal accounts� (because the word personal has a more positive connotation). Similarly, the urge to push the friendlier word surge (a burst of electrical power) stemmed from a war council desire to cushion the blow of a new troop hike.

Read it all.

EMERGENCY CARE HORROR STORY: There lots of horror stories out there about emergency care. And as someone with an ailing father, I read them and cringe. One of most detailed, and MUST READ POSTS comes here via Peoria Pundit, written by Dr. John A. Carroll.Carroll details his concerns in specifics, then notes how he decided to write a letter to higher ups about it:

Someone seriously warned me that I might get fired if I sent the letter. I knew that could be true, but thought the letter needed to be written based on how dysfunctional the OSF-ER had become.

He got a letter from a hospital bigwing:

His secretary handed me his letter as I was starting to resuscitate a man in the ER who had a cardiac arrest and was brought in by ambulance. [The] letter stated that he was putting me on probation for six months from the main ER for writing the letter.

Read the post…and see what you think…

Controversy Continues Over MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson’s Battle With The Blogger/Video Clerk and there’s even some controversy over descriptions of the controversy in blogtopia (the guy who wrote the linked to post invented that phrase…)

But Carlson Isn’t The Only Talk Show Host At War With Bloggers (or the only one whose dispute led to a blog being pulled). Just read THIS.

Photos Can Make Great Art To Hang On Your Walls. Like this one. (We strive to enlighten you with art — but art is on vacation,so we gave you that one.)

What It Means To Be A Canadian is great read The link was sent to us by Canada’s Allan Jannssen.

Speaking Of Allan Jannssen, he has a thought provoking new book. The Plain Truth About God-101 is sure to be widely discussed (and perhaps shouted in some quarters).If you email Jannssen, he’s giving out 50 PDF copies of his book free to TMV readers. The link to his site is HERE. And you can buy it HERE.

First There Was Danny DeVito Drunk On “The View” and NOW THIS. What’s going on with these celebrities? Part of it seems to be an increasing lack of shame and rejection of the idea that a celebrity should be a role model.