CMS — the federal bureaucracy that certifies nursing homes and writes the checks — has forbidden family members from visiting… certainly a cause for depression and feelings of abandonment…
Category: Opinion/Letters
EDITORIAL: A Season of Educational Confusion, Part One
This past Tuesday, May 26, members of the news media were invited to listen to a Zoom presentation by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), featuring Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes…
EDITORIAL: Colorado’s Mysterious Death Statistics, Part Three
My young granddaughters and I took a stroll through Pagosa’s Hilltop cemetery on Memorial Day. We don’t have any family members buried there, but we recognized some familiar names…
HMPRESENTLY: Sounding Authoritarian, a Little?
What’s that supposed to mean? That “all necessary measures” will be taken. Does it mean duck and cover, we’re cranking up our missiles?
EDITORIAL: Colorado’s Mysterious Death Statistics, Part Two
I think of my dear mother, one of the sweetest people you could ever hope to meet, who passed away a few years ago at the ripe old age of 92…
OPINION: The Four Horsemen of This Apocalypse
Durer created the image more than 500 years ago… displaying the horsemen’s combined energies, and inspiring thought about the collective energies of our own apocalyptic horsemen…
EDITORIAL: Colorado’s Mysterious Death Statistics, Part One
A new disease, COVID-19, has appeared in the statistical records, and has passed up heart disease as a reported cause of death. But something else equally dramatic has taken place…
HMPRESENTLY: What’s With Almost Everyone Being on the Same Page?
Safety is a top priority when there’s an accident at an oil refinery or a coal mine. And when some passenger falls off a cruise ship…
LETTER: Americans Losing Their Health Insurance
What’s the best way to cover the millions of Americans who are losing their insurance every week? The answer is hiding in plain sight…
EDITORIAL: Clean Drinking Water, Considered, Part Five
To judge by the news articles I’ve come across, California’s Imperial Irrigation District is a political sacred cow…
EDITORIAL: Ready for Lower Taxes?… Part Two
Whether those same folks believe a Governor can toss out (temporarily?) the well-established laws governing the placement of a citizen initiative on the November ballot, I cannot say…
EDITORIAL: Clean Drinking Water, Considered, Part Four
Here’s a photo of the lovely view looking northwest from Snowball Road on May 20, 2020. I’m not sure how many ranches we can see in this photo… maybe two.. or three?
EDITORIAL: Ready for Lower Taxes?… Part One
“Protecting our democracy, access to the ballot and making sure citizens can qualify ballot measures and can qualify as candidates to run for office during this time is critical…”
EDITORIAL: Clean Drinking Water, Considered, Part Three
The truth is difficult to get at, when we’re faced with apparently contradictory evidence. Are we really in the midst of a megadrought that will last for decades? Are we actually just wasting our limited water resources in a careless, devil-may-care manner?…
OPINION: Slow-Walking to the End to Mass Incarceration
Mass incarceration exacerbates the health consequences of the coronavirus pandemic because of unsanitary conditions of confinement and an inability to physically distance…
EDITORIAL: Our New Normal
“This implies that by staying home, you’re doing something that helps protect people. To not stay home then, would mean putting others at risk….”
EDITORIAL: Clean Drinking Water, Considered, Part Two
Under the “Irrigation” tab, we can find the amount of water that USGS believes was used for that purpose in Archuleta County in 2015…
OPINION: America, in the Balance
‘We the People’ are battling a catastrophic pandemic ‒ over 90,000 deaths so far ‒ and Trump is talking about ‘Obamagate’?…
LETTER: Rural Healthcare Gets Slammed
As a Family Medicine doctor who has worked in rural Colorado throughout my 33 year career, I am very concerned about the future health of the families I have cared for….