The Shifting Line

The line separating good and evil

passes not through countries,

nor between classes,

nor between political parties either,

but runs through every human heart.

The line shifts inside us,

it oscillates with the years.

And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil,

one small bridgehead

of good is retained.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Gulag Archipelago

Of Note: With elections coming next week and emotions running high on both sides, it seemed appropriate to step out of our USA-centric mode to look at the larger picture of which Mr. Solzhenitsyn spoke. As a political prisoner in Russia for many years, he had time to contemplate the nature of political good and evil. Surprisingly, this dissadent found it not in large entities, rather in the individual where he saw good and evil co-existing, much like the frozen and fluid water above.


Today's Weather Report: Bright and sunny. Supposed to get into the mid-sixties. Certainly didn't expect that this week! We will be gone over the weekend so I'll be back to the blog early next week.


Watch For Change Snippit: As recycling gathers steam, one surprising area of conservation is reuse of medical devices. While some might say, yuck, we are not talking syringes here. Rather items that can safely be sterilized and reused without harming the next patient. For whatever reason in the last ten years, many devices originally labeled for multi-use were re-labelled for single use, increasing patient cost and waste substantially. Large health systems took the lead here including such notables as Kaiser Permanente. For example, in 2007 this visionary HMO saved $3.5 milion but more impressively eliminated about 45.7 million pounds of medical waste.

PS: I apologize, but I have little control over some aspects of this blog since last week, such as line spacing. Some days I have what I enter, some days not.