The Book Catechism: Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert

So you read a book about global warming. What are you, a liberal?

Actually, I'm a scientist. And like a scientist, I draw conclusions by collecting the available data and figuring out what it means. Data have nothing to do with politics, no matter what the politoidiots say.

So I guess you are going to tell us you are convinced.

Quite. What struck me about this book was how uncontroversial global warming is. There is no one who studies climate data who thinks the climate is not warming. This isn't even a question. What scientists are debating is how it is happening, and how fast it is going to happen. Kolbert uses a nice mixture of anecdotal evidence and hard statistics to show that the temperature is warming, and shows that it is happening faster than scientists expected it to. She points out the obvious -- that the sea level is rising, the polar ice cap is melting, and observed temperatures are increasing. And she points out the not so obvious -- that species of birds and butterflies are being found in places that were previously too cold for them, frogs mate earlier than they have only a few decades ago, and a hibernating mosquito has adapted its hibernating pattern in a way only explained by temperature change.

One of the strongest reasons to believe in global warming is indirect effects like animal behavior. These effects were not predicted by climate change models, but have been observed anyway. One test of the truth of a theory is that it explains effects that the creators of the theory would never have anticipated. Climate change theory does this in spades.

Climate change can explain why there has been a .1 change in pH in the oceans. There is no competing theory to explain that.

What is the most surprising thing you learned from this book?

Climate change theory is not new. In fact, the first scientist to predict global warming was the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius, who won a Nobel Prize for seminal discoveries in the behavior of electrolytes. In 1895, he argued that a doubling of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere would increase global temperatures by six degrees. Although Arrhenius left out several complicating factors that make his model simple compared to modern calculations, his prediction is close to what today's scientists predict.

Thus, the argument that global warming is some kind of a plot cooked up in the 60s by a bunch of flower children looking for fame and fortune is historically wrong. Just flat out wrong.

What is the strongest argument Kolbert makes?

Not argument, arguments. What makes this book persuasive is that Kolbert shows that there is evidence for global warming everywhere scientists look. Glacier experts, lepidopterists, evolutionary biologists, oceanographers, and even epidemiologists have found direct and indirect evidence for it. And all this evidence fits together. Anyone who denies global warming has to explain away a who lot of coincidences that are explained by it.

So everyone should read this book?

Yes, unless you don't care that the choices you are making right now could cause billions of people to suffer within the next 100 years.

My Board Certification Is Complete! (So Now I Get To Complain.)

Today I finished the last part of my Internal Medicine recertification. I can't say I was pleased by the process. Although I understand the need for some kind of certification process to guarantee physician competency, I think the American Board of Internal Medicine is going about this in all the wrong way.

To complete the boards recertification, I had to sit for an 8-hour examination (fine), and then do 100 hours of learning modules (not so fine). It's one thing to have to sit for a test every 10 years to prove you know what you are doing. But for the Board, taking an exam wasn't enough. I also had to complete 100 credit hours of personal study modules in addition to the exam. And it is those study modules that I want to complain about.

First of all, it's not as if I just sat for the test. Far from it. I studied for months to prepare for that exam. But studying for, taking, and passing a fairly difficult exam wasn't enough for the Ol' Board. They had to lay some lard on that there butter. So they added a whole additional array of requirements for recertification. Just a bunch of stuff I could knock out in my free time. On top of maintaining a legal medical license. And practicing medicine every day. And fulfilling the 20 hours of medical education I have to complete (and document that I have completed) annually to stay licensed in the state of Mississippi.

The truth is, I learned little or nothing from these modules, and my time would have been much better spent studying areas in medicine directly related to my practice, rather than doing a series of learning modules that really didn't apply to the type of medicine that I do.

My cynical self finds it easy to believe that the Board added all this additional material simply so they could charge me more money for board certification. It's easier to justify charging several thousand dollars for a test when you throw in a whole lot of busywork as lagniappe. And busywork is just what I found it to be. The Board tries to emphasize evidence-based medicine, and yet, there isn't a whit of evidence that 100 hours of board learning modules will improve the medical care my patients get. In fact, I can assure you it won't.

It's too many hoops to jump through. I already have to devote a large amount of my energies as a physician to maintaining compliance with the many, many, many federal rules that are now imposed upon the practice of medicine. I have to deal with insurance issues, documentation issues, and hospital demands in my routine practice. In the last few years I have seen regulations explode in every area of medicine, while the amount of time that I have to comply with them all remains fixed.

(And for you Obamahaters, don't blame this on Obamacare. These regulations have been gradually set in place over many years. They have more to do with insurance companies saving money than with the most recent flavor of health care reform.)

The American Board of Internal Medicine is supposedly composed of physicians. You would think that a group of physicians would look for the least time-consuming method to ensure physician competency, especially knowing as they should all the other bureaucratic problems we face in routine medical care.

Understand that I'm not suggesting that no regulation is needed. Only that the burden of regulation should be kept at a level that is proven to benefit patients, and not at the level the Board of Internal Medicine would like it to be in their dream world. No matter what, the number of rules I have to comply with to keep that diploma on my wall should not rest solely on the judgment of people whose job security depends on more and more regulations rather than fewer and fewer.

The Book Catechism: A Game of Thrones

Why did you read this book?

Not because of the HBO series, which I have never seen. I pay the cable company a king's ransom every month. There's no way I'm paying extra for a movie channel. No, what first pricketh my interest in this medieval fantasy novel was a story in the New Yorker by Laura Miller. She described a runaway bestseller in the fantasy market that had considerable literary merit.

I prefer literary fiction usually. The more hoity-toity, the more I like it. But I'm always on the lookout for the best of the best in other genres when I want a break between Cheever and Borges.

Do you recommend it, overall?

To the average male reader, yes. It's very far from chick lit, but Laura Miller likes the series, so I wouldn't say women won't like it. Just that it's not typical women's fare. This is a hardboiled, gritty, murderous war story. A realistic Lord of the Rings. The story takes place in an alternative universe that -- what are the odds -- resembles medieval England. Some people have called it LOTR for adults, but that is unfair to Tolkien. LOTR is and always has been adult material. It's just that Tolkien has been mined by so many children's authors for ideas that it is hard to approach LOTR without brining the baggage of decades of fantasy books and films with you.Thrones has the advantage of being able to look back over the last 80 years of fantasy writing and avoid the cliches. Cliche-deficient writing is usually going to be superior.

Thrones is a much more realistic LOTR. In Thrones people die, brutally, painfully. If you think Sauron and the Orcs were cruel you ain't seen nothing yet. In Thrones women are raped, children are tortured and murdered. Like the Arthurian legends that underlie most fantasy fiction, Thrones has something of a love triangle. Except one of the sides of the triangle is incestuous.

It's realistic in the sense that it is bloody and cruel, then?

Yes, but it's more than that. In Thrones one character dies from a wound infection. That happens all the time in real wars, but I've never heard of that in fantasy. More than that, there is, at least in this book (it is only the first of seven), very little magic. Much of the sorcery in this book is explained, though not all of it. The wizards seem more like shamans than real wizards. They helplessly watch people die just like everybody else, and apply salves and prescribe medications that the reader implicitly understands are useless. The only drug that seems to work is the "Milk of the Poppy" -- opium. (Sometimes real medicine is like that, too.) In this sense, Thrones is a little like Genesis rewritten by a Deist. Much of the magic is not magic at all.

But there are a few very significant exceptions. The way Martin will deal with these exceptions is the tension that drives readers from this book to its long chain of sequels.

Is there a medical angle to it, since this is a medical blog?

People get infections in this novel. And there's a dwarf that isn't a dwarf in the traditional fantasy way -- that is, a member of a race of short, super-strong people who like to dig for gold. This is a real dwarf, someone who has short stature and abnormal curvature of the spine. Possibly spina bifida, or severe scoliosis, or some other congenital medical problem that would cause dwarfism. That's what I mean when I say there's not a lot of magic in here. The only dwarf in the book is a dwarf because he has a medical problem.

At any rate, I find it fascinating that people in an alternative universe have wound infections. Is this from alternative universe bacteria? Or are we dealing with the usual staph infection? Why have bacteria in an alternative reality? Could it be that the people in the Thrones world evolved from simpler life forms and the bacteria are a remnant of those simpler forms, just as it is in this world?

What is best about it?

Plotting and character. The book is told from the point of view of almost a dozen main characters. To keep all that clear Martin titles each chapter with the name of the character who will be the point of view in that chapter. This is a wise move. If he hadn't made the point of view so painfully clear, this would be a very confusing story.

As it is, the number of points of view creates an intricate plot. And the characters, to meet the complexity of the plot lines, are complex also. I was often surprised at the reactions and interactions the characters had with one another -- this book is far from a simple good vs. evil formulation. There are heroes, and there are villains, but the two sides interact with one another in very complex ways. Characters are punished for being foolish, or haughty, or weak. An alcoholic king suffers mightily for his love of drink, his successor suffers for his brashness. A recurring theme seems to be good people who are punished for not being pragmatic. In Thrones, you suffer for having scruples.

It's hard not to like a book that is so serious about consequences, and looks so deeply into personal weakness.

What is worst about it?

There are no underlying themes. As a highbrow reader I am used to books that comment on the human condition, to use a stilted and overused phrase. Thrones is not like that. It looks at human foibles the way a soap opera does. It shrugs and says, Well, what can you do? The complexity is there to generate interest, not for philosophy. I expect for most readers that is not a problem. It's not really a problem for me, but it isn't what I prefer. I like profound. Sorry.

Anything else you don't like?

This book has a long windup. Like 500 pages long. The prologue starts with what seems like a supernatural event, and then the focus shifts to a medieval swords and knights story. The next supernatural event occurs 500 pages later. It took so long to get back to the theme in the prologue that I started to wonder if Martin had forgotten about it.

There is a parallel story that takes place in a land across the ocean from the main story. Even at the very last page it is not clear how this parallel story will intersect with the main yarn. This puts me off a bit.

On the other hand, it isn't as if the 500 page wait is boring. There are wars, marriages, murders, and intrigue. There's plenty to do and the story moves very quickly. Since even main characters are sometimes killed off, there is a sense of jeopardy not present in stories where death of the hero seems unthinkable.

Short chapters make it easy to digest the complex plot arcs.

Would this book make you read more fantasy novels?

Probably not. One of the things I glean from this book is that fantasy fans like a different book structure than I like. This book is very much like a soap opera. It is composed of many short chapters. The action moves rapidly from one character to another and leaves suspenseful situations up in the air for dozens of pages at a time. The story has a huge, long, slow arc, but there are many smaller arcs that appear and resolve along the way. Kind of like Luke and Laura.

Fantasy folks seem to prefer a story that goes on and on and has dozens of smaller stories within that emerge and resolve along the way. Think of the six-episode Star Wars series, or LOTR, or the infinite incarnations of Star Trek. The attraction is the open-endedness. We literary people prefer a tightly organized story that comes full circle and resolves in a satisfying way. Think of Pulp Fiction or To Kill a Mockingbird. A truly literary work comes to an end, often so hard that there is no real chance of a sequel. Even those with sequels have to re-invent the basis of the story so it will work again. Fantasy novels plan for sequels. If Thrones had ended in a way that had made a sequel difficult, it wouldn't have half so many fans.

It depends on what you like. Fantasy fans prefer 1001 Arabian Nights (which, come to think of it, is the true grandparent of modern fantasy). Stories go on and on, episodically, and could continue forever. Literary people prefer Hamlet, where practically everyone is dead at the end of the final scene. Hamlet II is an impossibility. I don't condemn the fantasy approach, but it isn't my preference.

In other words, you don't plan on reading any more of the series?

I think I will. I bought the first 4 books on sale for 35 bucks. The book was an effortless read. With short chapters, I could read a couple of chapters a day and make good progress. I don't think knocking out a few more will be hard. Nothing much is resolved at the end of the first book, so if I don't soldier on I won't understand very much about what what already happened. It is well-written and entertaining. Just because I am not a fantasy guy doesn't mean I can't like Thrones. I like Star Trek and LOTR without liking their genres.

And anyway, I have lots of time. It took Martin 5 years to write the last book in the series, A Dance of Dragons, and he says he has 2 more books to go. So I am guessing if I get through the next 5 books in 10 years I should be ready to read the last book when it comes out. I'll be standing in a bookstore at midnight behind a bunch of fantasy fans in suits of armor, waiting for the final release. And I will be having fun.

The Eric Cantor Morality Play

In instances like this, yes, there is a federal role. Yes, we're going to find the money. We're just going to need to make sure that there are savings elsewhere to continue to do so.

-- US Rep. Eric Cantor, August 29, 2011

Setting: The Cantor family home, near Richmond, VA. Eric Cantor sits in a leather chair in his living room, a Bible in one hand, a copy of the U.S. Constitution in the other. On the table next to him is a brass lamp and and a radio playing the Best of Rush Limbaugh. Enter Cantor's teenage son.

SON: Dad, grandma is having a heart attack! I need the car keys to drive her to the hospital.

CANTOR: Now hold on, son. What's this about needing the car keys? No one needs a car. A car is a privilege. You ask politely for the car keys.

SON: Sorry, Dad. Look, grandma just had a heart attack. She is lying in the den, right over there. I want to take her to the hospital. May I have the car keys?

CANTOR: That's much better. But son, driving is a big responsibility. And you have not driven responsibly in the past.

SON: I know, Dad. I know I got a couple of tickets last summer. But look, grandma's --

CANTOR: I don't want to hear another word about grandma. We all love grandma. We all want to help grandma. But this is about personal responsibility. You haven't been responsible in the past. How can I entrust you with the family vehicle when you have been irresponsible in the past? I expect something in return.

SON: Dad, she's your mother.

CANTOR: No, she's not. She's your mother's mother. My mother died alone in a nursing home in Arizona two years ago.

SON: No, Dad, that was mom's mom. This is your mother. Remember, she came to visit last week? We call her Grandma Cantor.

CANTOR: Hmm, I didn't remember that. Well, I guess that means I might owe her a couple of Mother's Day cards. But that's besides the point. This is about you being irresponsible.

SON: Yes, sir.

CANTOR: That's more like it. Let that be a lesson to you. It's impossible to have a productive conversation with someone until that person first makes a complete admission of guilt. Then you can proceed with discussion. You remember that. Now where were we?

SON: Grandma's dying.

CANTOR: No, that's not where we were. We were talking about how irresponsible you have been in the past. And about what you are going to do about it in the future.

SON: Dad, I think she stopped breathing. If you'd just lean over and turn your head, you can see her from here.

CANTOR: I don't need to do that. I trust you. That's something I do, because I believe in the sanctity of the family. Fathers trust their sons, no matter what they have done. Even though you have behaved poorly with the car in the past, I am prepared to make a deal with you. You can have the keys now, as long as you take the bus to school every day for the next month.

SON: Dad! This has nothing to do with grandma!

CANTOR: Dang it, this has everything to do with grandma. Grandma believes in family values. She believes in personal responsibility. If you want the privilege of driving the car, you must sacrifice. We all must sacrifice. If grandma could speak right now, I know she would be in full agreement with me. I am absolutely, positively certain she would rather die than let you go on without looking at yourself in the mirror and admitting your shortcomings. This is about the future. If we can't trust one another going forward, what kind of life will our grandchildren have? Did you ever think of that?

SON: Ok, Dad, that's fine. Just please give me the keys. She's turning blue.

CANTOR: Remember, just because you're doing something right today doesn't mean you are atoning for all the wrongs you've done in the past. You can't pay past debt with good deeds in the present. That's not how God thinks. That's the problem with people in this world. They think just because they are trying to do good today, we should let them do whatever they want to do even if they haven't paid for the wrongs they committed in the past.

I'm talking to you about values. Values are more important than anything else, even life or death. The health care debate should have taught you that.

By the way son, why didn't you call 911?

SON: Don't you remember? It takes an hour for the ambulance to get here, ever since the last hurricane washed the road out. It's only a dirt road now. They can't rebuild it because of the budget cuts.

CANTOR: Oh, I had forgotten that. I use the helicopter to get to work. Mind you, I pay for that helicopter with speaker's fees. I earned it, with money from the American free market. When you start earning seven figures in speakers fees, you can have a helicopter, too. But not before.

SON: Never mind about the keys. Dad. She's dead.

CANTOR: And where are you going then? You go back in there and clean up the mess. I'll be hanged if I'm going to bail you out twice in one day.

The Stock Market is Crashing. Let's Blame the Republicans.

Now that the pseudo-crisis of the debt limit is over, the real crisis begins. The stock market continues to stumble, faster since the so-called resolution was passed on Monday. It was hardly a resolution. it was a joke. And the stock market is proving what we all knew to be true -- it can't take a joke.

The joke is that the conservatives did what they promised. The one promise they did hold to was not to raise taxes, but the big promise they made, to reduce the debt, they left lying in the road like a dying dog. Only a tiny percentage of the spending cuts they passed will take place this year. Most of them are backloaded after the year 2014. In other words, the game of chicken they played that pushed the economy to the brink changed almost nothing this year, or next year.

Which is funny when you think about it. Conservatives swear up and down that the U.S. economy is failing because the government is in a debt crisis. Not because our schools are terrible. Not because we spend one-eighth of our GDP on health care, by far the highest rate in the world. Not because we have a tax code that favors accumulation of wealth for the rich -- excuse me, the job creators -- and not job creation. Not because we spend more money imprisoning people for drugs than any other developed nation instead of fashioning a meaningful drug policy. Not because we, an immigrant nation, insist on treating illegal immigrants as if they are radioactive, instead of what they are -- us, a few generations removed. No, it's all about the debt. Can't be anything else.

The Republican mantra is that taxes kill jobs and tax cuts create them. The corollary seems to be that debt kills jobs and balanced budgets create them. From my knowledge of economics, the two statements are not equivalent. I borrowed money to build a house and I could have sworn it created jobs. The government borrowed money to build interstate highways and the outcome seems the same. This is not to say all borrowing creates jobs, or that borrowing is preferable to paying out of pocket, but still. It is clear that the debt-budget balance equation is a touch more complicated that we are being told.

Yet, let's take the Republicans at their word. They believe every borrowed dollar devastates the economy just as surely as every drop of blood a person bleeds makes him weaker. Thus, paying down the debt will lead to certain prosperity. So why didn't they author a bill that did that? Why didn't they make massive budget cuts now, since that is what will turn the economy around?

They would say it is because the Democrats wouldn't let them. Which is absolutely true, except to the extent that it is largely false. The GOP was ready to let the U.S. default on its debt obligations because many on the far right thought default was better than borrowing a single dollar. Somebody who thinks that wouldn't sign on to a bill that didn't make any more than symbolic cuts in year one.

The real cuts in the compromise will take so long to take effect that there is plenty of time for both Democrats and Republicans to take them back before they ever take effect. No doubt that will happen. There aren't many hard and fast rules in American politics, but the one that says that, given a choice between a hard decision and an easy one, a politician will chose the easy one, seems as ironclad as any rule can be. Forget the hue and cry. The deal just made was an easy one for both sides. Easy for the Democrats because no cuts come now, and they know they can always play the you'll-kill-grandma card later when it comes time for real budget cuts down the road. Easy for the Republicans because they can claim trillions in cuts on the campaign stump knowing the pain of the cuts can always be pushed further into the future.

So once again, how does a political party that insists that debt spending is disastrous for our economy sign on to a bill that doesn't reduce debt? Maybe if they don't truly believe in their hearts what they are saying in public.

It's not a stretch to believe a politician would lie to the public. I don't also think it is very hard to believe that a politician, in difficult economic times, would hesitate at the thought out laying tens off thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of public workers. It is one thing to believe in theory that deficit spending is bad for the economy. But to tell thousands of your own constituents that you are going to fire them for the good of the country is quite another. It would take someone with supreme confidence that budget cuts will improve the economy, and fast. Next year, after all, is an election year.

The better course is to pretend to cut spending while securing the jobs of your constituents. That way you can claim to have exercised supply side economics while you in truth hedged your bets with continued government spending. And, surprise, that is exactly what happened.

The superficial interpretation of the stock market crash is that investors feel the budget deal will not improve the long term public debt problem. Baloney. The stock market has never cared about public debt before. The debt "crisis" has something like a 10 year time horizon, and Wall Street has trouble looking past next August, much less 10 years down the road. Conservatives love to talk about the debt being balanced on the backs of our children and grandchildren. The very idea that Wall Street investors give a hoot about what our grandchildren will have to pay is hilarious.

No, Wall Street is upset first because there are serious problems in Europe, and second (also secondarily) because the recent debt ceiling debate proves the U.S. government, and especially the party that is in their corner, has no clue whatsoever how it is going to get this country back on its feet. At this stage I think even a leftist plan that involved aggressive government spending to stimulate demand would make the financial markets feel better. Just as long as it is a clear plan that has the goal of growing the private sector. The means don't matter, the important part is that there is a meaningful plan.

This is why it is the Republicans who have failed us. They who insist they have the answer to long term economic growth but are afraid to really put their ideas into action when they have a chance to do so -- they, the Republicans, the cocksure, wouldn't do what they swear up and down is the only way to save America from financial ruin.

How can anyone have confidence in a party that won't do what it professes to be gospel?

And no, I don't think the same can be said about the Democrats. (Obama is a special case. My opinion of him is summarized below.) The Democrats were willing to compromise from the beginning. None of them were against all cuts. They simply wanted cuts offset with revenue increases. Democrats don't profess that tax increases are the definitive answer, or that stimulus spending is the only way out of trouble. That absolutist language is solely Republican. Democrats have always been willing to attack the problem from both sides. The key is, they acknowledge that there are two sides to the problem in the first place.

Somehow, even though the Tea party is only a subsection of a party that only controls one house in Congress, it drove the entire conversation and set all the limits of debate. And despite winning every battle, it accomplished exactly nothing.

With a Congress like that, I'm afraid myself. If this is the best Congress can do, what happens when they have to tackle a real problem? Here in Jackson MS we are on pace to set the record for 100 days in a summer, with most of August to go. Climate change is the true crisis of our age, and no one dares to even speak of it.

As for Obama. There are two schools of thought about him. One says he lacked the courage to stand up to the Tea Party. The other says he is secretly a moderate, maybe even right of center, and that he wanted spending cuts and the extension of the Bush tax cuts all along.

The Obama-as-moderate argument is alluring because it gives him credit for intelligence and for having a plan after all -- just not the plan we thought he had. I can't buy it, however. No matter where Obama stands on the political spectrum, whether he is left of Eugene V. Debs or to the right of Ayn Rand, what the Tea Party did by holding the U.S. credit rating hostage to political negotiations is immoral. Blackmail is immoral no matter where you stand politically. The Republcans did the blackmailing, but the President allowed himself -- and us -- to be blackmailed.

This suggests the President is ethically challenged. My view of Obama is that in allowing debt negotations to get to that point, he was signaling that he doesn't feel strongly enough about the obligations of the U.S. government towards its debt to take a stand. He could have threatened to use the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling. The GOP was breaking the rules by refusing to raise it, so why was it unthinkable that the President would counter their queen by deploying his own queen?

Obama is supposed to be very intelligent. Any good chess player knows you can't win a match if you keep your queen parked in the corner. His refusal, not just now but repeatedly, to use all the powers he has to defend what is right suggests that he does not have a strong sense of right and wrong, at least not in this matter. Or in health care. Or in climate change. Or with torture.

I don't think I can vote for him next year.