POWER POINTS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (01-29-26)

    I read that China is developing a pair of huge reactors to harness nuclear fusion, a nascent power source that could possibly change the trajectory of human existence and reverse the effects of global warming. We would be working on that here in America too, but right now we have some other important things to do, like tearing down the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom. And before you know it the President will have bigger balls! 

     So what is nuclear fusion? I'll lay it out for you, because it's not exactly rocket science, which I don't understand either. When two atomic nuclei combine to form one heavier nucleus, it releases energy. Think of Taylor Swift's marketing machine joining up Travis Kelce's NFL juggernaut. Producing and tapping the energy is the challenge; you need to warm the atoms to a temperature hotter than the sun, create plasma, and hold it in that state for long enough to channel the power. Pretty much the same stuff Taylor and Travis do on a daily basis. If you succeed though, the rewards include no nuclear waste or possibility of nuclear meltdown as compared to traditional nuclear fission, using a source plentiful on Earth. 

     It turns out that artificial intelligence needs much more power than regular intelligence. All you need for regular intelligence is a nap once in a while, some iron-rich nutrients and several Kit Kat bars, and you can stir up enough brain cells to formulate an idea. There are no guarantees it will be a good one, but at least try. On the other hand, Apple is expected to spend $500 billion on AI data centers in the next four years, and to power them, it's projected that they will use as much electricity as 22 percent of American households. 

     That demand alone is what may be driving an accelerated push to find the next big energy source. Energy can be as simple as Ginger and Mary Ann pedaling a stationary bike to power Gilligan's Island, or it can get quite a bit more complicated. Solar power and wind power are pretty straightforward. But what if it's a cloudy day with no breeze, and Ginger and Mary Ann aren't speaking to each other because Mary Ann hits her head on a rock and gets amnesia and thinks she's Ginger but now she sings better in the talent show so Ginger is jealous? What were we talking about again? Oh yeah- energy. The hydrogen fuel cell is another example of a technology that's on the horizon.

     Fuel cells work by feeding hydrogen molecules through an array of anodes, cathodes and electrolytes, causing the electrons and protons to do a dance almost identical to the "Beer Barrell Polka," which results in the induction of power as well as heat and water. If you think this is a over-simplification, clearly you have never tried to do the "Beer Barrell Polka." 

     Geo-thermal power is an up-and-coming technology that's up and coming right out of the ground. A geo-thermal installation doesn't create power, it simply gives existing systems a head start by sinking a pipe far enough into the Earth to tap the consistent 50-degree temperatures below the surface, heating winter air to a warmer baseline, or cooling summer swelter to the same starting point.

     I have a friend who had solar panels put on his roof that charge an array of batteries to power his home. And whatever power he doesn't use he can sell back to the grid for what seems to me like a paltry amount. I asked him, aren't there any other grids you can sell it to? Shop it around? Maybe sweeten the deal with some coupons or something. I hear that women love a man who has a lot of power. 

     My only problem with that whole idea is that I hate things that run on batteries. They always give out at the most inopportune moments. What if that PSA comes on television, and the batteries for my remote control are out-of-office? You know the PSA, the one with the kid with the shrill voice who just won't give it a rest, who makes me feel guilty for wanting to bust him over the head with a four day-old loaf of Italian bread. Or what if I'm stuck on a desert island, and I only have THREE CD's, which I chose beforehand (Black-eyed peas? I should have spent more time on this) and a plane flies overhead and I don't have enough candlepower in my flashlight to get its attention?

     We tend to take power for granted until something happens and the lights go out. I bought a gas generator for our house that has a pull cord to start it when there's a bad nor'easter. I didn't get the electric-start model NOT because I'm so cheap (as long as I'm not under oath), but because I just KNOW I'd only remember to charge the battery when the power was out and it was too late. Anyway, I only have so many amps to choose from, and I have to decide between the hot tub and heating the house. I think I made the right choice. 

     I remember as a kid seeing a tag on electrical appliances that said "Approved By the Underwriters Laboratories." I imagined that they performed a battery of tests on, well, a battery, perhaps, and when they were done, wrote something under it. Like maybe, "Your battery's okay." Now this service is performed under OSHA, an arm of the Government, which is not reassuring, especially now. But luckily, electrical products undergo much more rigorous testing under the "reviews" section at Amazon.

THE YEAR IN REVIEW- 2025

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (01-15-26)

    Some people complain that they have no reliable source for important news. The following article will prove that they DO an unreliable source for unimportant news, which is even un-better. Here are the top stories of 2025:

LABUBU BALLOON DEBUTS AT PARADE
A stuffed plush toy from China named Labubu became so popular last year that it had its own 16-foot inflatable at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The misbehaving mini-monster is now ALL the rage, supplanting the Chase 'N Go Ball Popper, which is now only SOME the rage and hopefully less painful than the name suggests. What exactly is a Labubu? It has fur, sharp teeth, is sometimes cute and gets into all kinds of mischief. Well, you're thinking, same goes for my cat. Yes, but the Labubu will not throw up on your newspaper, so I would be worried if I was a cat. I'm not sure what "Labubu" means in Chinese, but in French it means "The bubu."

SCIENTISTS MAKE DISCOVERY STUDYING MICROSCOPIC ANIMAL DROPPINGS
Researchers at Dartmouth College have found that coating the surface of an algae bloom with clay dust greatly increases the amount of carbon ingested by microscopic zooplankton who then defecate the material far below water's surface. The hope is that these micro-poops could thereby reduce the introduction of carbon into the atmosphere. A microscopic zooplankton, reached for comment said, "THIS is what scientists are doing? Following us around with a microscope while we do our business?" The discovery also proves that carbon footprints are not always made with one's feet.

SWAN BLOCKS TRAIN, CAUSES CANCELLATIONS
Train service to and from Glasgow Central Station was disrupted for several hours due to a swan wandering onto the tracks. It only illustrates what I've been saying all along: It's become SO annoying to fly that even birds would rather just find another way to get there. Apparently this is not the first time it has happened, and since the swan is a protected species, railway workers have undergone special training to remove them. Swans can be aggressive when threatened, so they must be handled with care. Approach the waterfowl slowly, keeping it low to the ground, covering it with blanket if necessary. Idle threats and insults should be avoided, especially referring to its beak as a "pecker." 

“CROCODILE” SON WINS DANCE SHOW 
Late television star Steve Irwin's son Robert hoofed his way to reality show victory ON "Dancing with the Stars" last year. His animal-advocate gene pool suggests an unfair edge, with advanced knowledge of the "bunny hop," the "funky chicken," the "duckwalk" and the "mouse." Steve Irwin is remembered as a beloved naturalist who was mortally attacked by a poisonous sea creature. I also know what it's like to heroically face the dangers of the natural world, having once survived an altercation with a cactus in which the cactus won.

KATY PERRY IS LAUNCHED INTO SPACE
Pop icon Katy Perry hobnobbed with actual celestial stars when she joined a flight that ascended above the Earth's atmosphere for eleven minutes, coincidentally the same amount of time it takes me to throw up in a spacecraft 27 times. Afterwards, when she referred to herself as an "astronaut," I was diplomatic enough not to suggest that the title of "space cadet" may have been more appropriate. By the way, why hasn't anyone thought to launch Miss Universe into space, just to make absolutely sure that she is the prettiest in the entire galaxy?

WOMEN SPEAK 3,000 MORE WORDS THAN MEN
Findings from a University of Arizona study found that women between the ages of 25 and 65 speak an average of 3,000 more words a day than men. Deeper analysis will probably show that most of those 3,000 words are the same ones, such as "idiot," "salad," "hormones," "DUH," "there's no way I'm wearing that" and "can I PLEASE just get 1,000 words in edgewise?" Another theory is that men are physically unable to talk while eating something off a woman's plate that she was within inches of stabbing with her fork.

PLANE CRASH-LANDS ON TOP OF TOYOTA
A small Beechcraft plane attempted an emergency landing in Florida, atop a car traveling on I-95. All participants in the crash escaped with only minor injuries, and the occupants of the plane even received their luggage faster than usual. It all sounds like an amazing stunt that Tom Cruise could do in his sleep, which is certainly the best time to attempt it. I do all my own stunts, too, like the time I bicycled down a set of steps by mistake at a park in Germany (true), and went hintenplatz at the bottom, on my bottom.

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS FAIL AT BASIC MATH
A new report from UCSD has revealed that the number of students placing below first-year algebra has tripled over the past five years. Tripled means, got to third on a base hit, although I think there's also a mathematics definition for it. That puts these collegians at less than an 8th grade level, and at risk of being grounded for two weeks by their parents. The last thing I remember passing in math was a test on the multiplication tables, which technically is pre-calculus. I was pretty good at English and pretty bad at math, which meant that I couldn't put two and two together, but at least I could read the writing on the wall.

Happy new year, everyone, and stay happy, healthy and well-informed!

RETIREMENT PLANS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (12-18-25)

    This year, as I sail off into the sunset after a 45-year career in network television, I'll be asking myself the same question that countless other retirees have asked before me: What am I going to do with this damned alarm clock now? They threw me and a co-worker a very nice retirement party, and the VP of Operations wished us both all the luck in the world. A very nice sentiment, but we BOTH can't have all the luck in the world, so we've made arrangements to divide it fairly.

     I'm ready to do all of the things that I've put off for so long. I can't wait to schedule that dream vacation to Australia. When I'm finally able to unfold myself after a 20-hour flight, it's time to party with the Aussies! Like the song says, "I wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day!" I settle for rocking and rolling at around dusk, and partying every other week. Ironically, now that I have all these spare hours to devote to sky diving and hiking the Appalachian Trail, I have sufficient cartilage left in my body only to hike to the bathroom a couple times a day.

     Have I saved enough money? I'm essentially in a race with my bank account to the finish line, and whichever one of us makes it there first is the loser. I can see myself not too long from now, making actuarial calculations in my head based on how much something costs versus how much time I may have left to enjoy it. Should I add an expensive addition to my home that will give me years of pleasure? Yes! But only when it seems like I have very little time left.

     When should you retire? You'll probably know it when you get there. It's a complicated mental calculation that takes into account job satisfaction, career goals met and unmet, the strength of your hobbies and relationships, the viability of your assets and whether or not your wife has threatened you with ballroom dancing.

     Like many retirees, I may want to keep a small size 11 footprint in the workforce. What is the perfect retirement job? A little bit of income would be nice, in case I get insecure about my Social Security. But I don't want it to be too hard, so hard that I get tired from my retirement. There are several jobs that could suit me perfectly. How about this one: Sometimes I find at the end of a long form, a blank page that says, "This Page Intentionally Left Blank," and I realize that since it didn't just happen by accident, someone must have spent some time and effort to remove the contents from that page. I could be that guy. I could put all the contents of those pages onto my kitchen table in my spare hours, and create my own Table of Contents.

     I'm always telling people what I think is going to happen. So what about the job of Oracle? I could tell your fortune, although even if you had a fortune I don't know what I would tell it. Instead, you could come to me, and for a small fee I'll let you know what's in the cards. I specialize in the future 40 or 50 years hence, so you'll have to be patient. By then it's likely that you will BE a patient.

     I think that I could have a late-life, part-time career in rap music. I don't care anything about rap music, but I have a great sense of rhythm, so I could be that guy in the background, the guy who says, "Uhh. Uhh. Uhh. Uhh," to the beat of the song, for no apparent reason. If everything needed an apparent reason to get done, not much would ever get done.

     Maybe I could bring back the job of Town Crier. My wife complains that I'm always whining about something or other. Sometimes I feel I need to yell it from the highest mountaintop. At least the nearest mountaintop, maybe the top of Mount Kisco. And when I finally climb all the way up there and yell it, the people below come together as one and say, "What? Can't hear you."

     I think I'd make a good rodeo clown, but I'll need to know if I'm supposed to make people laugh or bulls laugh. It's different material. What about a career at the Department of Corrections? I'm always finding mistakes on the internet in grammar and spelling. Consulting? Might be just right for me, because I have plenty of questions. I've heard it said by almost all my schoolteachers that "there are no dumb questions," and I was able to disprove that myth many times over.

     Maybe when you retire you just need to adjust your closely-held beliefs as to what a productive member of society should be. I hear all the time that people miss the action when they retire. I have a reader friend who was NY Supreme Court judge. When he retired, there was probably the thought that, "what am I going to do now that was as important is that?" And the answer is that maybe he should trade quality for quantity. Just judge a lot more things, of lesser importance. For instance, I've drafted a four-page decision citing Rick Melen v. the Manufacturers of Packages of Processed Cheese That Are Impossible To Open.

     Maybe it will turn out that trying to find my perfect retirement job IS my perfect retirement job.

ONE SMALL STEP FOR MAN

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (12-11-25)

    In case you missed it, a Russian android powered by AI was recently unveiled at a tech symposium in Moscow. The robot took a few steps, pitched forward, and then face-planted onto the floor, whereupon it busted into several pieces, as his stunned handlers struggled to whisk the abashed assemblage of bedraggled bolts off the stage. If it had had a life-alert device, it would have pushed the button and yelled into it, "I've discombobulated, and I can't combobulate!" It looked disturbingly like the field sobriety test of someone about to score a .19 blood-alcohol level on the breathalyzer, on his way to getting his license suspended for 90 days. Or so I'd imagine.

     How did we get here? And here is where we are, trying desperately to remove any small measure of physical exertion from our lives, while at the same time paying $200 a month for a gym membership to put it all back. Did it all start with my Dad, who, as us kids tried to surreptitiously creep past his open bedroom door, summoned us over to the TV to change the channel as he weighed the merits and entertainment value of each program? Thank goodness we didn't have 370 channels back then. From the first year that I was tall enough to reach the television tuner to the day an automated device was invented, I was a human remote control.

     Probably our fascination with automation started even before that, maybe with the invention of the telephone. In order to hold a conversation you used to have to mount up and find someone's house so you could let them know how stupid they were to build one so far away. Leading to some disparaging remarks about you, not to mention the horse you rode in on. But once the telephone came into widespread use, you could simply call them up and give them a piece of your mind. And this time, your Mom wouldn't see the faces you were making as she yelled back at you.

     Maybe it was the automobile. Once a Mustang was invented that had more horsepower than an actual mustang AND you could put the top up when it rained, progress had won. Was it the washing machine? Now you don't have to wash your clothes in the cold river against the rocks, and the rocks don't have to complain that, couldn't you ONCE not wear white to an Italian restaurant? Maybe it was the record player. In the days before its invention, if you wanted to hear a particular song you'd have to invite the band over to play it for you. And once they were finally gone, your liquor cabinet was sparser and the drummer had left with your wife.

     The Japanese are always trying to invent a robot that can serve as a companion, thinking, erroneously, that it might be better company. But Artificial Intelligence is making robots act more like humans every day, and that means that very soon they'll be annoying and impossible to live with. They've already invented a female android named Ann, so real-looking that it prompted me to say in wonder, "couldn't they have used a smaller nose?" It holds the promise of making being in a relationship much easier, using advanced science such as speech recognition and realistic materials that allow its facial expressions to better mimic being exasperated with men because they didn't first write down the address before getting in the car.

     The more AI is used in ways it never has been before, the more opportunities arise for it to fail. An article I read in the Times said that an editor for the New England Journal of Medicine sent an author a letter it had received before publishing it, which had disagreed with his study's findings. It referred to a different paper, which happened to have been written by the same scientist, but cited the article's conclusions erroneously. When it happened again, it became apparent that scientists wishing to be recognized in multiple fields were using AI to provide research that would normally take weeks, in order to get letters into the Journal. The fact that it got findings wrong was an unfortunate side effect. It made me want to write a letter to the Times stating how misleading this article was, and use AI to write it, since I couldn't figure out myself how it was misleading. I guess that's why when I used to write letters to the editor, they never wrote me back.

     It seems we'll all have to think long and hard about what AI's place in the world should be, before it convincingly proves that we're longer necessary. Maybe one day after I'm gone, I could be replaced by a robot that complains about its knee, leaves remnants of unfinished projects all over the house and completes your sentences for you in a way that you never pictured when you started them. I picture it in a platonic yet unnaturally rewarding relationship with Ann the android, in which they spend romantic evenings picking up small objects in front of each other and boasting about how easily they do it, escalate their arguments to physical violence but brag that it didn't hurt, and play each other to a total of 572,000 stalemates in chess. And THAT, my friends, is progress....

THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-20-25)

     When we attended a Robert Plant-and-friends show at the Capitol Theater last Saturday I realized I hadn't been to a bona fide sit-down concert in quite a while, one that I wasn't working at as a volunteer usher, as I do at the Tarrytown Music Hall. Plant, performing a smattering of Led Zeppelin songs, evokes a bygone age of rock and roll, when it was okay to bite the heads off bats, or play so loud that blood could be seen coming out of the audience members' ears, or light your guitar in flames without first going over the fire safety exit plan. 

     When I was in high school, there was a heyday of rock and roll. This was before artists were formerly known as other artists, or people brought their kids and put ear protection on them. There was an element of danger to the whole experience. You could fall in with the wrong kind of crowd, or even become trampled by the wrong kind of crowd. You used to be able to get tickets to a show at Roosevelt Field for 8 bucks, complain about how much prices had gone up, pile into your Mom's station wagon and be on the L.I.E. before she reported it missing. If anyone remembered what exit the stadium was it was a bonus, but if you simply followed the traffic you had a 50/50 chance of getting there, unless you ended up at a hockey game. You could save your ticket stub and show it off the next day to your friends, a conquering hero, if you weren't grounded for two weeks. I tried showing off my e-wallet account history to my friends after the Robert Plant show, but it just wasn't the same.

     What is your favorite concert experience of all time? When I think back to all the concerts that I can recall, I realize that it's remarkably few. Not because I didn't attend that many, but because I was a child of the '70s. So if I tell you that I remember many of the details, I probably really wasn't there at all. But one performance does stand out in my memory: seeing Emerson, Lake and Palmer at the Garden with a 70-piece orchestra on hand to play the album, "Works." The production was an absolute gem, but once someone actually did the math, including feeding all the musicians on a daily basis, the show proved fiscally unviable, and the tour was aborted. Remember, while rock stars can subsist on a diet of cheese steaks, beer and used carburetor parts, classical musicians need to eat hummus, fresh fish and French wine in order to survive.

     There are so many bands I wished I had seen. The Beatles, obviously. I picture myself at the Ed Sullivan theater, age 12, screaming at the top of my lungs, at all the annoying girls who won't shut the hell up. The who is another group I wish I had seen. Who could write an entire rock opera about a deaf, dumb and blind kid who became famous playing pinball, and have it all make sense? Come to think of it, it did not make any sense. But I still loved the record.

     Believe it or not, I never saw the Grateful Dead in concert. But from what I understand, the Grateful Dead could play a four-hour show, using only one song, and at some point during the performance, you could drop out of school, join the army, get married, have a baby, undergo a religious awakening, denounce God and eat an entire anchovy pizza before ending up in the medical tent, where you were declared perfectly normal and therefore asked to leave.

     My niece recently traveled all the way to Germany to see Taylor Swift perform, because it was actually cheaper than seeing her in America, once all the numbers were run and every employee of Ticketmaster had received a $2000 bonus. Thus was ushered in a new era of music-Taylored tourism, and also, Swiftian irony. Just another of Taylor's many eras. 

     I'm afraid to see any artist live who was born after 1967, because I'm concerned that I may become annoyed by incessant lip-syncing, Autotune and excessive choreography. I come from a generation that just wants to you do the songs that we all remember, to see if you really know all the chords and can sing that high. And if you MUST do songs from your boring new album, don't expect a medal. And for GOD's sake, don't dance unless you absolutely have to or an insect flies into your pants.

     At the end of the concert, the band walks off with a wave, and it's up to us, through only the power of our enthusiastic applause, to coax them back onstage to continue the revelry. We carry on for a good while, because that's what we do. I steal a glimpse at my watch as I applaud. Is "Dateline" on? The intensity of my own personal clapping is based on a complicated algorithm that takes into account the quality of the performance, the length of the show, how long my car ride home is, their likelihood of returning, whether or not I have to go to the bathroom, and other data that are carefully factored in. Meanwhile, the stage crew has removed two microphones in an effort to test our resolve. What if they never come back? What if they're already at their hotel, drinking, carousing, breaking furniture and throwing fashion models out of the window into the hotel pool? Maybe that was the old Led Zeppelin, but the septuagenarian Robert Plant probably hasn't lost a step. He could be up in his room, cheating at Scrabble, or under-reporting his sodium intake to his cardiologist. BUT, just as the skin on my hands begins to wear away, the group returns to the stage and the magic continues, if only for a moment longer.

 Rarely is such beauty, intelligence, happiness and energy bundled into one small package, a perfect four-pawed faithful friend, who commanded attention then demanded it. Two adults became delightedly invisible at one end of a string that held an object of joy and curiosity to hundreds of perfect strangers at its other.

A bounding 45 pounds of mirthful mischief, her immersion into the study of our everyday habits made her a slave to her favorite traditions, and simply to the daily living of a well-loved life.

Missing the beaming smiles reflected back at us from others for this little creature that absorbed so much affection and gave so much back, will be the hardest part.

We love you, Gidget

 

 

UNRAVELING MEDICARE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-15-25)

     I'm going to be retiring at the end of this year, and I'll be moving off my company's health care plan and onto Medicare. I've been reading up on things, and as a public service, I'm going to review the different elements of Medicare with you, so you can simply concentrate on getting injured. Part A is for hospital coverage, what you'll use if I back into you with my car, because I can't get the hang of using the back-up camera. Objects in my mirror are closer than they appear, and yet objects in my rearview camera are farther than they appear. So it's not my fault that nothing is as it appears. Luckily, all your tests at the hospital come out okay, except for math. 

     Part B covers doctor visits, medical equipment and preventative checkups, the physical therapy for your foot, which I ran over when I put the car in drive after I backed into you. Part D is for drugs, in case my explanation starts to give you a headache. Part C, or "Medicare Advantage," may cover many things the other parts don't, such as vision, dental and hearing. If there is a hearing after our accident, you'll be able to hear it. 

    My wife thinks my own hearing is shot, because she says she asked me to take some crap up to the attic, and I never did it. "I probably just didn't hear you," I postulated. She said, "I asked you in a text." I told her she's just projecting her own desires onto me by telling me I can't hear, because she secretly wishes that my constant chatter might bypass her ears and go straight into outer space, where the audio waves could be picked up by inhabitants of distant planets wondering whether they should visit Earth, and it would help justify their decision not to.

     The last thing I would want to do is visit an ear, nose and throat specialist who is straight out of medical school and inexperienced. The only thing ears, noses and throats have in common is that they are all holes in my face. It would be easy for a new doctor to make a mistake. "Okay, I'm going to put this tongue depressor all the way in, and when I give the word, you say 'Ah.' Okay, NOW." "Doctor, you put the tongue depressor in my NOSE."

     When I go for the hearing test, there is a four-page form that I must sign. It describes all the things that will probably happen to me during this procedure, including dismemberment, death, and the deaths of those in my immediate family. If that doesn't do the trick, there will be torture. At the end of the form is a little check box and a place for my signature, and a sentence that says, "YES. In fact, I'm surprised I didn't think of it myself."

     If they offered a "rewards card" for my healthcare group, I would sign up for it immediately, because I'd be eligible for quantity discounts. Every time I run from the baseline to the service line on the tennis court- and it's more like a waddle than a run- the cartilage in one joint or another fails, a ligament snaps, a tendon tears, sometimes all at the same time. There appears to be no cartilage left in any part of my body except for my brain, where there are no moving parts.

     If you're shopping for part C supplemental insurance, it's easy to figure out the best plan: the higher your deductible, the lower your premiums. The fewer covered services, the higher the co-payments. The more in- network doctors, the lower the maximum benefit. If you'd like all of these things at once, your physical health will be far better than your financial health.

     I went to the orthopedist for my wrist, which has so much arthritis that he likened it to the Colorado River carving out the Grand Canyon. He said there was nothing much he could do about it. I said, I know, it's been there for thousands of years. But what about my wrist? He said, there is a surgical fix, in which he removes two bones, which he pointed out to me on the X-ray. They were about an inch long, and when I asked him what he was planning to put in there instead, he said nothing. Nothing? Can you at least put a piece of Lego, or some rubber bands in there to take up the space? Can't you graft a ligament from my butt and screw it in there? We've become spoiled by the advances in medical science.

     The majority of healthcare providers honor Medicare, but if your Part C plan supersedes Medicare's, you may have to poll your physicians to find out if they are included. I asked my doctor if he was in my network, and he was, but apparently the doctors got together and kicked ME out of the network. There are a lot more doctors from faraway places now. I was referred to a Dr. Ngflstrnqlzian, and when I asked how that was pronounced, I was told just how it's spelled. Emigrating to the United States to escape the tyranny of a regime that outlawed the use of vowels in the year 1043, his expertise will now flourish. 

     I hope this has helped you make informed decisions regarding your medical care. Remember to activate your plan during "Open Enrollment." If you do so during closed enrollment, it's considered breaking and entering, and you'll have to co-pay a fine.