I grew up in Ohio in the 1960s. In Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, football was and remains today a religion. I was lucky enough in the late ’60s and early ’70s to play for two state championship high school football teams and one NCAA Division 3 Championship football team. My high school team was completely […]
Category: John Livingston
Faceless Accusations
When my father returned from Japan after serving for 5 years during and after the Korean War, he carried with him a small book that several years earlier had been turned into a well-known Japanese play called “Rashamon” In the play 5 witnesses—including an apparition of the murdered protagonist, recount the rape and murder of […]
I was sorry to hear that Senator Bernie Sanders had an ischemic event crescendo angina or a heart attack while campaigning in Las Vegas. I was also relieved to know that he was being treated at a state of the art medical center where I know many of the physicians and surgeons that practice there. […]
It’s Just Politics as Usual
So few people today in our country have an appreciation of our own national history. Watching the news out of Washington can only be depressing. Everything is viewed through the lens of politics. Even the basic sciences have become politicized. Medical research, global warming, public health, have all been compromised by the funneling of political […]
Over the past 9 years, we have argued in many places and forums the three points that lead this article. Our opponents have argued otherwise. We are now seeing these arguments being made in the national press more frequently and forcibly because the true numbers on The ACA costs and promises are beginning to appear. […]
Tectonic Plates
Plate tectonics is the geologic theory that the earth’s crust—the lithosphere that is about 60 miles thick and sits on a thin mantle over the earth’s core, is constantly moving. I have a theory of political tectonics that describes how various political theories and ideas sit over a core of values that are held in […]
In 1974, I was assigned as a Navy medical student for 3 months active duty at Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Portsmouth VA. This was at the end of the Viet Nam War and I had the privilege of being involved in the care of many wounded and injured sailors, soldiers and Marines including 36 returning […]
Why I like Trump
We have a problem where I live every spring when the runoff from out winter snowpack in the mountains raises the flows in the Boise River. When that happens the animals that take refuge along the river find their ways into the basements and yards and ponds just a few feet above the river banks. […]
The White Coat
I have noticed over the past 12 years that a very small number of physicians have posed with politicians in their “white coats”. There are over 3000 physicians practicing in Idaho today and when a small group 5, pose in the capital building in their white coats the general public may believe that this small group is […]
The “Varsity Blue” DOJ investigation into College Admission cheating and scamming by people and families of means is consistent with the narrative today that there are two separate classes of people. Those in the upper ruling classes who believe that they can play by a very different set of rules and those in the middle […]
Medicaid: Gaming the System
We hear from all quarters that health care is a complex issue and solutions are difficult to implement. One political faction argues for a “single payer” command control Health Care system. Conservatives like to point out that we haven’t had an unfettered health care market place since 1965 and the problems we have today with […]
Late last week Idaho Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin posed with and then removed on Facebook a brief meeting she had with two members of The Three Percenters. This group is described by Jeff Taggert in his most recent Idaho Politics Weekly post as being “wacky and extremist at best”. The group met with and posed […]