Comments on: Thoughts on Rising Tide 4

By: kitty

kitty — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:59:36 +0000

Bravo, Holly, you are such a big thinker and it is refreshing to read your take on things.

I have been digging around the internet for some info on separate but equal care re charity hospitals and haven’t found anything, maybe I’m not looking in the right places?

By: Cold Spaghetti » Blog Archive » Just Posts: August 2009

Cold Spaghetti » Blog Archive » Just Posts: August 2009 — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:07:10 +0000

[...] at Cold Spaghetti with: Superheros; Thoughts on Rising Tide 4; and Why does New Orleans have different moral rules of [...]

By: Painted Maypole

Painted Maypole — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:06:01 +0000

thank you. i had hoped that the racism and classism that Katrina exposed would create much more dialogue (and then action!) both locally and nationally, but it seems we have all “politely” chosen to look the other way. Again.

By: liz

liz — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:53:07 +0000

I think it would have been better for you to retain the moderator position and have a small panel, being a moderator is really hard. I think having a moderator who hadnt had time to prepare to manage the flow of topics contributed to the decision to go with extended Q&A, which turned out to be not as directed as some of the other panels.

By: chrissieroux

chrissieroux — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:05:47 +0000

Having said that, I do think the forum was very useful in highlighting our weaknesses and strengths as a community. The virtual community is well-posed to continue the discussion(s): How do we, as wounded healers (per Loki’s comment) and helpers immersed in a dysfunctinal system, take a step back and examine the dysfunction? That’s not easy. And what do we do about these issues of providing quality and equal care for all residents? And per Susan Tucker’s comments about the price of healthy foods: how do we ensure that all people have access to fresh, affordable foods? I remember Editor B wrote a great post a while back about the new neighborhood market in his area–how it’s name, “Eat Well” or something like that, did not reflect the fact that the market contained almost exclusively processed foods. We can get these discussions going, and continue them.

I also think, in these types of forums, that break-away groups with time built in for small-group discussion would be really helpful.

By: chrissieroux

chrissieroux — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:49:23 +0000

I absolutely agree with you about the relative ineffectiveness of discussing local services in a forum like RT. Cade and I were talking about this exact thing on the way home yesterday.

I think a large part of the reason the discussion was not focused where it should have been focused–on future systems, issues of race and class and language–was because of all of the talking in the back of the room. A large part of the audience was highly distracted and irritated by the disruption, and I think this left people frustrated and unfocused.

By: liprap

liprap — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 05:11:21 +0000

I am so sorry that you didn’t mention race and class, and I’m sorry I didn’t mention it, either. It certainly has a much bigger role in our health culture here than we’d like to acknowledge.

But then again, the subject of health care alone on a local level could take up another conference.

Still very, very happy you were there…and I hope there will be more folks like you and Dr. Irimpen who will keep directly assessing these issues and how they are linked to our health.

By: Charlotte

Charlotte — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 04:26:00 +0000

It’s a shame you had to forfeit moderating but this excellent post is the result. You bring up a very, very important point in your discussion of the haves and have-nots in this city and I really think that is the divide in the larger healthcare debate.