Coyotes are my friends!

A lot of Sun City people don't like the coyotes that roam our neighborhoods. Those people typically own small dogs and/or cats, which look a lot like supper to a coyote. But I like the canines even more now than I did before! What you see here is all that's left of a rabbit that had designs on the new plants I just put in...perhaps the lantana you see in the background. Take that!, you wascal wabbit!
But I probably can't count on the coyotes to be there every time a rabbit drools over my tender young plants. So tomorrow I'm going to get chicken wire to make a small fence around each plant. I hate how ugly that looks, but it works. And once the plants are fully established they can survive a little nibbling. That may take a year or more, but that's life in Sun City.

I mentioned last night that I've started a shadow blog at www.CraigMacDonald.blogspot.com. That's looking like a better blog hosting site in several ways. Posting comments is open to anyone (thanks, Sherry!) and although I won't try it until after I've written this, it looks like I can drop videos right into the blog instead of as links. Besides that, the links I do put in actually work! I don't like the lack of a counter. I added one but it doesn't have a visible counter which will require another html drop and I think I only have room for one or two more. But those issues are all relatively minor, and the fact that comments are open to anyone carries much more weight than those disadvantages.
So, for the foreseeable future I'll run both sites, but eventually I'll switch over to the blogspot site exclusively.

Some of you may remember Citroen. A French car maker that stopped importing to the U.S. back in the late 60's or early 70's. They were outstanding vehicles, the first readily available cars to include disk brakes, front wheel drive, high mounted taillights and manually adjustable hydraulic suspensions. They were you-know-what ugly but boy, were they cool. Well, Citroen is still in business, still making highly regarded cars and trucks, and turning out some cool TV ads at the same time! (click on each of the four screens to the right and up a bit to watch their ads. Blogspot rocks!)

I met Josh White for b'fast this morning. He's a former student of mine who now pastors a church in north Glendale. He had to leave earlier than usual to go pick up the used motorcycle he's buying (got a killer deal on a Shadow 1100!). I stayed to get some more work done and couldn't help but overhearing a meeting going on at a table 10' away. The meeting was being led by a man my age (i.e. young and virile) and he had about 7 young adults under his tutelage. The guys were all wearing shirts & ties and the young ladies, all quite attractive, were dressed very professionally. He was explaining to them how to work with a web site they'd need for their work.
And their work, I quickly realized, was drug reps to doctors. They were learning how to track and record a particular doctor's visits, scripts written, etc.
Maybe I'm totally naive on this, or just plain uninformed, but I'm more than a little bothered by the notion of drug reps calling on doctors to push their employer's meds. I want my doctor to prescribe my meds based on my particular diagnosis and the most effective treatment for that diagnosis. I don't want him thinking, even subconsciously, about the cute rep that called on him, the free stuff he got, or the all-expense paid junket to Minnesota he might receive.
When I've shared a waiting room with a drug rep I know that rep will go in to the doctor with the scientific facts and figures, but also with something, something else to convince that doctor to buy his drug instead of the competitor's product that does the same thing. I don't want my dr. influenced in the smallest way by anything except the empirical evidence.
This group of reps were, I'll willing assume, all good young adults who work hard for their money, are of above average intelligence, and interested in public health. My problem isn't with them, but with the system.
No, I don't have a solution. I wish doctors could review drugs themselves, but there are too many and the issues are too complicated. I wish, then, that there was a single source of information on all meds, representing all manufacturers, not beholden to any single drug conglomerate. (I'd say the govt. could fill that need but we both know what would come from that!) That ain't gonna happen either.
So, like many other areas of life, I'm at the mercy of those who serve me. So are you. Let's hope our doctors have principles higher than their mortgage payments.