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Tampa notes #3
At the evening reception, chats with John La Puma about his food-as-medicine mission, Brian Doyle (he attended my blogging session at last year’s conference and started his ADHD blog in August) and Tom Linden about Prairie Home Companion (Tom’s nephew’s band, the Powder Kegs, will perform on the 4/21/07 People in Their Twenties Talent Show), and longtime speechwriter-for-physicians Elizabeth Mitchell, who got me to remembering about my high-school conversations with Fr. Schwartz about how he worked all week to prepare for Sunday’s homily.
Tomorrow, Newt Gingrich will be here. While I was eagerly anticipating Dr. Gerberding’s talk today, I’m dreading Gingrich’s appearance. In Cleveland in 1997 (will have to confirm this), Gingrich gave a talk at Tower City. At one point, to great applause, he proclaimed that all drug dealers should be put to death. This horrified me: Gingrich is supposed to be this smart historian-politician, but here he was advocating a draconian and unrealistic punishment. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow morning if his health care message has improved.
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Thanks for the link.
— john la puma Apr 13, 07:32 AM #What I liked about Gingrich was his very first “Say yes if” not No because”...it says “ Be positive…it is more productive.” It is also kinder and a better future for healthcare than his talking pacemaker or quickie solution for climate change by midcentury. I do like his wireless everywhere forecast, his erudition and intelligence.
Lots of people are speculating that Gingrich will run for President. Health care is going to be a huge issue. Republicans aren’t coming across as very compassionate conservatives… coming out as a “liberal” on health care could help him a lot. IMHO
— BrianR Apr 13, 08:41 AM #Gingrich was definitely erudite and intelligent today, and he clearly is looking at the big picture. As someone mentioned to me after the session, Gingrich is the king of the soundbite, and that’s party what rubs me the wrong way. But Gingrich is also clearly anti-government and wants government out of health care — even though he praised government interventions in the early days of aviation because those regulations helped improve safety and reliability. I’ll give Gingrich this: even he seemed to retreat from his soundbites so he could expound on the larger, more complex issues. We need thinkers to be our leaders.
— Anton Apr 13, 01:03 PM #