The AFP on WREL: Report blasts Virginia health care
Editor Chris Graham joins WREL’s “Online with Jim Bresnahan” to talk Virginia news and politics.
The segment begins with a discussion of the report of a state advisory council that this week told Gov. Bob McDonnell that the performance of the health-care industry in Virginia is mediocre. What steps can the administration and the General Assembly take in this tough budget environment to try to achieve reform in health care in Virginia? Chris tries to give some insight into what the next steps might be.
We wrap the week with a review of a proposal from Republican lawmaker Bob Marshall to bar gays and lesbians from serving in the Virginia National Guard in the wake of the repeal of the federal don’t ask, don’t tell policy. Does the effort have a chance of becoming the law of the Commonwealth?
Weekend Watchdog: Sports under the tree
After spending time with a tree with Christmas balls, the NBA hopes you’ll watch their players on the court Christmas afternoon.
Five NBA games tip off Christmas Day, with the two biggest on ABC. The Celtics head south to face Orlando at 2:30 p.m., then at 5 p.m. LeBron, D-Wade and the crew take the Heat against the Kobe and the Lakers.
The day starts at noon on ESPN with the Bulls visiting Chicago at noon. At 8 p.m., Denver takes on Oklahoma City followed by Portland-Golden State. Read more
Weekend Watchdog: Sports under the tree
After spending time with a tree with Christmas balls, the NBA hopes you’ll watch their players on the court Christmas afternoon.
Five NBA games tip off Christmas Day, with the two biggest on ABC. The Celtics head south to face Orlando at 2:30 p.m., then at 5 p.m. LeBron, D-Wade and the crew take the Heat against the Kobe and the Lakers.
The day starts at noon on ESPN with the Bulls visiting Chicago at noon. At 8 p.m., Denver takes on Oklahoma City followed by Portland-Golden State.
Before the big day, TNT has its usual Thursday doubleheader – the Spurs meet the Magic at 8 p.m. before the Heat and Suns meet in Phoenix. The Wizards head to San Antonio Sunday at 7 p.m. on Comcast.
NFL Network has its final games this week, with Dallas visiting Arizona Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The weekend begins with Carolina traveling to Pittsburgh Thursday at 8. Once the Steelers ice the Panthers, rink-building begins for the NHL’s Winter Classic New Year’s Day.
The NFL moved Vikings-Eagles to the Sunday night NBC slot, and the NFC South battle between the Saints and Falcons has coverage on ESPN Monday.
Sunday afternoon, the Ravens visit Cleveland on CBS. FOX has the doubleheader, with the Redskins taking on Jacksonville in the early game and the Giants-Packers earning the 4:15 p.m. spotlight.
College bowl season continues Thursday in San Diego, as Navy faces San Diego State in the Poinsettia Bowl at 8 p.m. on ESPN. Tulsa spends Christmas Eve in Hawaii, meeting the Rainbow Warriors at 8 p.m., while Sunday at 8:30 p.m. Florida International takes on Troy in the Little Caesar’s Bowl.
College basketball has a few contests over the Christmas weekend. ESPN2 shows Georgetown-Memphis Thursday at 8 p.m., followed by a game from the Diamondhead Classic. Friday starting at 7 p.m., there’s two games from the Cancun Governor’s Cup.
Christmas Night, there’s two more games from the Diamondhead Classic at 7 p.m.
MASN has St. Francis of Pa. taking on Cincinnati Thursday at 7 p.m.
The Capitals host Pittsburgh Thursday on Comcast, then visit Carolina Sunday on Comcast-plus.
JMU wins return matchup with Marshall
Senior forward Denzel Bowles (Virginia Beach, Va./Kempsville) poured in a season-high 34 points to lead James Madison past Marshall 80-73 in a non-conference men’s basketball game on Wednesday night at the Convocation Center.
JMU won its second in a row to improve to 9-3 on the season. Marshall fell to 8-3 with the loss. The Thundering Herd had won an earlier meeting between the teams on Dec. 7 in Huntington, W.Va. by a score of 67-63. Read more
UVa. struggles continue: Cavs lose to Seattle, 59-53
Having survived a horrific effort Monday night with a last second tip-in to beat Norfolk State University, the Virginia Cavaliers weren’t as fortunate tonight against Seattle University, losing 59-53 to the Red Hawks in John Paul Jones Arena.
Although almost unimaginable, Virginia was less efficient offensively in tonight’s game than in Monday’s near-debacle against NSU. The independent Red Hawks, in the program’s second year back in Division I, watched on defense as the Cavaliers shot just 10 percent from behind the three-point line (2-20) and not much better from anywhere else on the floor, for that matter. Read more
Report to governor: Virginia health-industry performance ‘mediocre,’ insurance market ‘unsustainable’
The performance of Virginia’s health industry is “actually quite mediocre.” So reports an advisory council convened by Gov. Bob McDonnell to review the health-care sector and its associated costs and benefits.
A report of the Virginia Health Reform Initiative Advisory Council issued on Monday estimates that 1 million Virginians – including 150,000 children – lack health insurance and timely access to regular medical care that access to health insurance makes possible. A key factor there: While 37 percent of employers offer health insurance to their workers, down from 48 percent 10 years ago, employers are still the single largest contributor to paying for the delivery of health-care services in the Commonwealth.
“Health care costs so much more here than in other countries that U.S. employers are having a more difficult time competing with global firms than they used to,” the report offers, along with this paradox: “An unhealthy workforce is less productive and more costly to employers than a healthy workforce, whether they provide health insurance or not.”
Other highlights from the report (link to report):
- Virginia’s overall quality of care is rated as “average,” with strengths in cardiac care, hospital care generally, and home health. Weaknesses in Virginia’s quality rankings include nursing home care, diabetes care, and maternal and child health. Virginia ranks 41st in the nation in breast cancer death rates, and 35th in infant mortality. The report notes that Virginia ranks sixth nationwide in median family income.
- While overall and hospital spending per capita are lower in Virginia than the national average, premiums are higher, and both health-care cost and premium growth in Virginia have exceeded national averages for more than a decade. Health-care cost and premium growth continue to outstrip personal income growth by two to three percentage points a year, so that both care and coverage require greater and greater sacrifice from families and employers, especially small employers.
- Virginia has some professional shortages in the health-care talent pool now that are expected to worsen over time, even without coverage expansion. Geographic maldistribution may be the larger problem than overall supply, according to the report.
- The current state of the insurance market in Virginia is rated as “unsustainable.” Many Virginians cannot afford private health insurance and are not eligible for Medicaid, and despite the best efforts of those in Virginia’s safety net, some go without needed services as a result.
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Girl Scout Cookies: Something old, something new
The 2011 Girl Scout Cookie Sale starts Jan. 1, 2011, with a new “sensibly sweet” cookie and new packaging for a returning favorite.
Shout Outs! — this year’s new Girl Scout Cookie — is a Belgian-style caramelized cookie with zero grams of trans fat per serving, no hydrogenated oils, no artificial colors or preservatives, and no high fructose corn syrup. Its ingredients are similar to what you might find in your own kitchen: flour, sugar, vegetable oil, brown sugar, vanilla and spices.
The average serving size is four cookies totaling 130 calories. The cookies can be eaten alone, of course, or used as an ingredient in desserts such as “Crunchy, Fruity Double Chocolate Bark” and “Shout Outs! Cheesecake and Fruit Trifle.”
Shout Outs! replace last year’s Daisy-Go-Rounds.
Further, in a pilot program, Thanks-A-Lot Girl Scout Cookies — a shortbread layered with fudge and embossed with “Thank You” in five different languages — will be packaged without the traditional paperboard carton. Instead, the delicious cookies will be delivered in trays overwrapped in film, similar to commercial cookie brands found in grocery stores.
This initiative will reduce the use of paperboard by 150 tons, enough to fill 14 garbage trucks.
ABC Bakers, part of Interbake Foods and maker of Thanks-A-Lot, said the move was initiated by queries from Girl Scouts on their company’s website about the environment and the best use of its natural resources.
This year’s cookie season lasts from Jan. 1-March 31. The remaining seven familiar favorites are returning, including the ever-popular Thin Mints. Thin Mints make up over 25 percent of the more than 200 million boxes of Girl Scout cookies sold each year. (The second most popular cookie is the coconut, caramel and chocolate confection, Caramel deLites.) Thin Mints are also the third most popular cookie sold in the United States, behind only Oreos® and Chips Ahoy!®
The Girl Scout Cookie Sale, the largest girl-led business in the world, helps girls develop life-long skills in goal setting, decision making, business ethics, working with people and money management. Juliette Gordon Low initiated the sale as a way for Girl Scouts to be self-reliant and to fund their own activities. In the 1920s and 30s, Girl Scouts in different parts of the country baked their own simple sugar cookies and sold them to raise money for their activities. The first documented council-wide sale of commercially baked cookies took place in Philadelphia in 1934. The first national Girl Scout Cookie sale was held in 1936. This fund-raising idea proved so popular with the girls that by 1937, more than 125 councils had adopted the program.
Girl Scouts of Virginia Skyline Council serves 10,500 girls and has more than 3,500 adult volunteers. Cookie proceeds help fund, for instance, programs for girls, training for volunteers, and scholarships for membership fees.
For more information, go to www.gsvsc.org or call 540.777.5105 or 800.542.5905, ext. 105.
Edited by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Legal aid attorney named to 2010 Virginia Legal Elite
Virginia Business magazine has named local legal aid attorney John Whitfield to its 2010 list of Virginia’s “Legal Elite.” Whitfield, a resident of Staunton, has served for the past 22 years as the executive director of Blue Ridge Legal Services, the non-profit legal aid society serving the Shenandoah and Roanoke Valleys.
To determine its 2010 list, Virginia Business magazine asked 11,500 lawyers throughout the Commonwealth to nominate the best in their profession in 15 categories. Legal peers selected Whitfield as one of the state’s top attorneys in the “Legal Services/Pro Bono” category. This is the sixth consecutive year Virginia Business magazine has named Whitfield to its listing of the state’s top lawyers.
Mr. Whitfield was the 1998 recipient of the Virginia State Bar’s Legal Aid Award, the Commonwealth’s highest recognition for legal aid attorneys, and he is a former president of the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Bar Association. He was a 2009 Virginia Law Fellow inductee. He is a member of Memorial Baptist Church in Staunton.
Blue Ridge Legal Services is a United Way partner agency.
Edited by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Like a broken record
The 1970s UCLA Bruins can rest easy. The UConn women didn’t break the record for longest winning streak by a D1 men’s college basketball team. And there is no record for longest winning streak by a D1 team men’s or women’s. What the UConn women did was extend their record winning streak for a D1 women’s team to 89-and-counting.
Sorry, but 89 of one isn’t necessarily more than 88 of the other, and vice versa. I’m not interested in whether UCLA’s 88 in the early 1970s were tougher or easier or UConn’s 89 in the 2000s were tougher or easier. Let’s just say it this way – men’s and women’s basketball are both basketball, but otherwise they’re different sports.
The men play faster and much looser, which isn’t always a good thing, while the women play more controlled and a much better team-oriented game, which isn’t necessarily better or worse, it just is what it is.
Both the UCLA teams of the ’70s and the UConn teams of today were/are dominant in their eras. Both attract the top kids from across the country, and both set the standard by which all others are measured and measure themselves.
And both had/have to play with a huge weight on their shoulders in the form of the pressure of a long winning streak that everybody knows was/is eventually to be broken.
Don’t underestimate the importance of that. Or what I heard UConn star Maya Moore say after a game last week about how other teams are able to give themselves a new reason for motivation to work harder from defeat, and how she and her teammates try to replicate the same from minor defeats in practice – losing a scrimmage or making a mistake in a drill.
That next bit of motivation in the form of a UConn defeat will come – maybe this year, maybe next year, but it will come. The UCLA dynasty faded over time, as will UConn’s. Men’s basketball is better for the parity that has come to its sport, and women’s basketball … well, I think it’s better in the here and now because UConn’s success has shone a spotlight on a sport that is ready for prime time.
The next most important thing for the sport is that it gets to the point where men’s hoops is now. Nobody can imagine a men’s team winning anywhere near 88 straight games. That UCLA record will stand forever, and whatever the number gets to for UConn will likely stand forever as well.
Column by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Liberty wins nailbiter with VCU
Liberty squandered a 13-point halftime lead Tuesday evening at VCU, but later came back from a five-point second-half deficit to win at the Verizon Wireless Arena. The Lady Flames’ 59-57 victory marked their first road triumph of the season.
Waynesboro High School graduate Devon Brown scored Liberty’s final four points, including a pair of free throws in the final 12 seconds that helped seal the win. She finished with 10 points, making her one of three Lady Flames to score in double figures on the night. Liberty’s balanced effort overcame a 26-point, 15-rebound night by the Rams’ Courtney Hurt, the nation’s leading rebounder and second-leading scorer. Read more
Documentary brings UVa. football history to life
Kevin Edds was moonlighting for ESPN in 1995 the night a Virginia football team upset #2 Florida State in Charlottesville. The then-recent UVa. alum purchased a tape of the game as a keepsake, but something was … lacking.
“There was no setup by a host to set the scene and put this win in perspective, so I started to write one up myself,” said Edds, now a Discovery Channel producer, whose effort to put the Florida State win in perspective led, 15 years later, to “Wahoowa: The History of Virginia Cavalier Football,” a documentary on the history of the South’s oldest college-football program. Read more
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David Reynolds: Faith and Christmas
Posted on December 23, 2010 · Leave a Comment
You can not separate the two. In a few days the Christian world will celebrate an event that took place 2,014 years ago. (Luke places the birth of Christ in 4 B.C.) That is more than two millennium, a long time to keep any celebration going.
How come? I believe that it is mainly a matter of faith. And that your faith is more important than someone else’s proof.
When Christians celebrate their most important holiday they are saying that something very special happened. That it was the start of something big. That it had to do with their belief in a Supreme Being. And they believe that how they view God should also determine how they view their own lives.
But let’s go back to this season’s centerpiece, the Christmas Story. Where is the proof that such a lovely tale took place? While I believe that God doesn’t mind a little honest doubting, it would be nice to know the facts. Would the birth of Christ hold up in a courtroom today when there are no witnesses? I doubt it.
And there are other questions for the jury. Does God exist? Is he the singular sensation? And if there is a God who rules the world with truth and grace, maybe we should get another ruler to do a better job? In other words, “What’s it all about, Alfie?”
The only answer I can come up with: I believe because I do not know. It’s a matter of faith.
Scientists have tried to take a stab at such questions, but with little luck. “How did the universe begin?” they want to know. Some conclude that there is no answer — that the question lies beyond the limits of human reasoning. Others believe there is an answer, but the answer depends not on reason, but on faith.
Isaac Newton proposed his laws of gravity, only to conclude that such a perfect universal design meant a perfect designer. Immanuel Kant took Newton’s thinking a step beyond. He said that we can not comprehend the universe as a whole. And therefore will never construct a valid argument for the designer, for God.
Most physicists go along with Kant. But not Stephen Hawking, who recently broke ranks suggesting that the laws of physics imply that there are limiting conditions in which a universe, or multiverses, come into being. Dr. Hawking’s conclusion: There is no single creator. Thus there is no need for a God, no need for a faith.
So where does that leave us? I’ve dug the hole. You fill it. But to help out I will leave you with three shovels in the form of three stories. The first two are true. They happened here. The third is everywhere.
About fifteen years ago at an after hours local church gathering, two of us were discussing the question of whether Jesus lived and whether he was the son of God. It became increasingly apparent that Hugh was getting a little heartburn from my reliance on faith. He told me in a stern voice, “Dave, that’s your whole problem. (He did not know of my other problems.) You rely on faith. You have no proof. I have just returned from a tour of the Holy Land. I have seen all the places mentioned in the Bible. I have proof!
My second story happened eight years ago when my future son-in-law was attempting to ask for my daughter’s hand in marriage. He nervously said how much he loved Carolyn. That was the easy part. Then he got to his main concern. “You know, I’m Jewish. Does that cause you a problem?” I asked him a few questions about God, about believing in something beyond and beside himself. He supplied the right answers. I said, “No problem.” They have two lovely daughters. Enough said.
Our final story is fiction. However it contains the same universal truth found in the first two encounters. A group of scientists (one being Stephen Hawking) were proudly discussing the progress made by modern science to the point that God is no longer relevant, if he exists at all. God, of course, overheard the discussion and was intrigued. So he disguised himself and came down to Earth in human form to take part in the discussion. “You say that you are so advanced that you can create life from mere dirt and that God is not part of the equation?,” he asked of the scientists. “Yes!” they boasted. God asked how. One of the scientists proceeded to pick up a handful of dirt to start his experiment. God stared at him and said, “No, no, no! Get your own dirt.”
So this Christmas be careful whose dirt you are throwing around. Have a merry one!
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