My mother passed away on Friday, August 21. This article from my hometown paper, the Woodstock Times, celebrates her life. Feels appropriate to blog it, for posterity and for friends to know what my mom was all about. Though if this is the first time you are hearing the news, sorry that it came in such an impersonal way :(

LIVING AND DYING WITH GRACE
Joy Hopkins-Hausman passes on
by Andrea Barrist Stern, Woodstock Times

Joy Hopkins-Hausman, 61, of Woodstock, whose name has been synonymous nationally with breast cancer support advocacy for more than two decades, died on Friday morning, August 21 at Benedictine Hospital.

After developing breast cancer in the mid-1980s, Hopkins-Hausman brought new dimension to survivorship, combining conventional treatments including a mastectomy, breast reconstruction and chemotherapy with complimentary approaches like support group therapy, acupuncture, yoga, nutritional counseling, vitamin therapy, meditation, and basic laughter at a time when such regimens were still far outside the mainstream.

Read more ….

A couple days ago, I was lamenting the state of the healthcare debate to my wife. In the public debate, and in the legislative chambers, the HMOs and conservative ideologues are kicking our asses. By “our,” I mean anyone in America with a pulse. Makes me depressed.

The very next day, my wife sent me the op-ed below, written by her father for his local paper. Dr. Jay Kaplan has been advocating for reform for decades. It’s inspiring to see that advocacy take form in a well-articulated public statement.

Bravo, Dr. Jay!

Why We Need Health Care Reform
Jay Kaplan, M.D.

I am a primary care physician and have been practicing for almost thirty years. I have had the opportunity to experience the many changes in health care over these years. The very positive changes are offset by the fact that many Americans lack health coverage. This group of nearly 50 million people includes recent college graduates looking for their first job, workers who own their own business, the recently unemployed, day laborers, and a host of other people.

Without health insurance, a major medical problem can quickly lead to bankruptcy. Doctors are reluctant to care for the uninsured due to the great liability issues in this country. The inappropriate use of the emergency rooms by the insured and uninsured alike greatly increase the overall cost of health care.

The cost of health care insurance has increased yearly. The use of generic drugs, decreased hospital stays, and the expansion of HMO’s has failed to control health care costs. Insurance companies deny coverage for patients with pre-existing conditions that make many uninsurable. Reports show that Americans pay the most for health care in the world yet health care charts do not place us near the top with regard to outcome data. We must demand coverage for all and better efficiencies with decreased costs. Incentives for preventative care for all patients are needed.

Our technology in medicine is very advanced with CT and PET scans, robotic surgery and very sophisticated ICU’s. With all the state of the art machines, we lack in fundamental health information systems that link doctors to specialists to hospitals. Often our privacy policies prevent the transfer of this essential information. How efficient is our information system when we cannot even identify the patient’s primary care physician? Why are medical reports not automatically sent from the emergency room to the correct primary care doctor? Why are patients in the VA system going to the VA Hospital to obtain their medications and again to their local physician for medical care at a double expense to the health care system? Why does Medicare not cover a yearly preventative physical for the population who is most in need of preventative therapy?

Data generated by the Red Cross, life insurance companies and worker’s compensation companies are often not shared with the patient or his personal physician. This expensive data is lost in the system and more often than not, repeated.

Public programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and the VA system provide quality healthcare for the elderly, poor and members of our armed forces. These programs work but there are many inefficiencies. Why are all the health care providers aware of these basic problems but the people who make the laws are not? We all hear about the $1000 wheelchairs, the $100 canes and the $10 aspirins. I am sorry to report that the system is as bad today as it was 30 years ago.

We need more primary care physicians. I suggest asking all the medical students in training programs how many plan to spend their time working in an expensive, inefficient system with high overhead and increased liability. The crisis is noted by the lack of obstetric physicians in certain areas. The ER’s and walk-in clinics keep expanding. This is not an efficient way to provide coordinated healthcare. We must encourage healthy life styles, diet, exercise and smoking cessation. People have to be more responsible for their own health. Inappropriate lawsuits do not help the system.

If done correctly, we should be able to recreate a better system. Discussion, not obstruction will enhance the health care system for all of us.

If you haven’t seen the latest Lincoln Wolf video …

… don’t walk

… RUN

to see it on YouTube!

Film buffs will remember that young Lincoln Wolf teamed up with director-of-the-month Judd Apatow to produce this instant classic adult comedy. Apatow later adapted the dialogue for the similarly themed “40 Year Old Virgin.” Co-starring Miller Schwarzschild as Seth Rogen, Quentin as Romany Malco, and Sake The Pug as Paul Rudd.

I had an adventure last weekend, and it left me hungry.

Jesse, Andy, Roan, Roy and I went upstate for a wilderness trip, with one central rule — we could eat only what we foraged, fished or hunted. No outside food was allowed. Roan wrote it all up in this funny, well-illustrated blog post.

The idea for the weekend came to me earlier in the summer, while walking around Brooklyn at dinnertime. Shawna and I were trying to choose from one of ten zillion delicious restaurants. I felt overwhelmed with choices … and overwhelmed by the modern cornucopia that we take for granted every day. What would happen if the modern food system broke down? Would we survive?

For 36 hours, the answer was yes. We came away hungry, but no worse for wear. More importantly, we all came away with an appreciation for the bounty that modern society brings to us every day.

Pancakes at Sweet Sues are sweet. The satisfaction of producing one’s own food is even sweeter!

Finally! After far too many years, I just relaunched StudioGuild.org, the website of my collaborative office space in New York City.

Know anyone looking for an office or a desk? We have a number of spots open. Send your friends to the Work Here page, or have them peruse the Floorplans.

(Thanks to Matthew Willse of The Coup for designing and installing the site. You always make it easy!)

Here’s something you don’t hear too often in New York: I’m proud of my State Senator.

As anyone vaguely familiar with New York politics knows, Albany is a mess. Right now, its a particularly ridiculous mess, with the biggest stink emanating out of the State Senate. It’s hard to underscore how incompetent the Senate is at passing legislation that helps New Yorkers.

And yet, I’m proud to say, my State Senator, Daniel Squadron, has stood out from the pack in his resistance to the mess. In a recent New York Times editorial, Squadron was the ONLY Senator called out by name as the counterweight to the madness in Albany. As a freshman Senator, he’s got a good reason to embrace reform — and a great time to do it.

Below is an email Squadron sent out to his supporters about the recent Albany mess. I repost it here because I think its a clear, sane explanation of why the recent disaster has unfolded, and what we can do about it. Enjoy.

[From Daniel Squadron, June 18, 2009]
Dear Friend,

With so much happening in Albany, I wanted to send along an update.

Over the last week and a half, I’m sure you have joined the rest of the state in looking on with horror and fascination as the State Senate has collapsed. A partially aborted attempt by two of my Democratic colleagues to enter into a pact with the Republicans has led to deadlock…and absurdity. For a period last week, the most significant question circling the capitol was, who holds the keys to the Senate chamber? The absurd truth is that control of the upper legislative house in the third largest state in the nation seemed for a period to hinge on an actual hinge.

There are lots of reasons we are in this mess. For one, it’s important to remember there are many who have been desperate to freeze action on important progressive goals from housing to jobs to ethics and campaign finance.

But things have gotten so bad so quickly for a simple reason. In the State Senate, the person, or people, who lay claim to the title of Temporary President and Majority Leader hold all the power. You are not witnessing a simple battle over titles or committee chairs. Rather you are witnessing a fight built on the question of who controls:

· All of the millions of dollars of internal Senate resources (staff, district mailings, member “lulu” stipends…even paper clips)
· All of the tens of millions of dollars of legislative grants and capital investment dollars
· All – that’s right all – of the legislation that moves through the house (in effect giving the leader of the Senate a non-overideable veto on all legislative matters in the State of New York)
· All other things you can imagine, except who gets elected to this body

New Yorkers are watching a woefully undemocratic process unfold because this is a battle for control of a woefully undemocratic place. After having been elected by the people, each legislator holds one powerful card – the vote for leader. In a sixty-two-member body in which members are so evenly divided between parties – and all sixty-two of us, not to mention advocates, lobbyists and special interests, understand the stakes – desperation, chaos, and stalemate are all too likely.

The only way out of this mess, assuming neither party suddenly gains a large majority, is for the entire body to enact real reform that fundamentally changes the power dynamic.

In the short-term, we need a bipartisan operating agreement that leaves the question of leadership aside while letting us pass the legislation that is so important for our city and our state. We cannot let the madness overwhelm the fact that the issues we fight for and the laws we pass have a profound effect on our constituents.

The proposal put forward by the Democratic Conference, modeled on what other states have done, is a fair way to get us back to the business of legislating, or at least a place to start the conversation. (On the other hand, the “proposal” put forward by the Republican Conference would give Pedro Espada and Dean Skelos absolute power and includes the insane idea that Senator Espada has two votes.)

Of course, whatever solution we come to now won’t get all of the legislation I’m fighting for passed or solve all of the Senate’s problems — and there are a lot of them. Real long-term reform is necessary; we need substantive changes on ethics, campaign finance and internal rules. This year we started to move the ball on each, but we have not done nearly enough. Beyond just getting support for ethics reform, which I was pleased to do, we have to enact it. Beyond just introducing campaign finance bills, we have to pass them into law. And beyond rules reform at the margins (or what the “coup” served up, which is a cynical attempt at headlines that masks leader-controlled business-as-usual), we need to fundamentally change the way the Senate is organized: if we had a real way to move bills to the floor, non-partisan administration of the Senate, and a fairer balance of power between the leader and the members, this sort of nuclear stalemate would be very, very unlikely.

New Yorkers are witnessing a fight over choosing a leader who will have near-absolute power, not just on a $130 billion budget but on issues from healthcare to the environment, housing to farming to civil rights. If there is any lesson from this standoff, it is that reform is not about idealism or feeling nice. It is about democracy, at its most basic core. Without democracy, the rot emanating from the Senate Chamber won’t stop in Albany; it is sure to spread, via bad laws and poor policy, across the state from Western New York to the eastern tip of Long Island.

I wish I could offer a prediction about what happens next; but the last week and a half has been so unpredictable, I’m convinced predictions are impossible. (A week and a half ago I would have bet that this week we would pass my ethics reform legislation, my housing, education and pedestrian safety proposals, and a raft of other bills I carry.)

As always, please let me know if you have any thoughts, suggestions — or predictions. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best,
Daniel

Lincoln Wolf Hausman stars as the dashing British agent 007lbs in “The Spy Who Loved to Spit Up On Me.” Combining breathtaking action sequences, steamy romance and Wolf’s sharply honed humor, this third film of his trilogy promises to be a crowd-pleaser. Note that Ian Flemming later copied Lincoln Wolf’s style and basic plotlines for his vastly inferior James Bond series.

Ten weeks after the breakthrough success of his first film, “What Rhymes with Lincoln?”, the precocious writer / director / star has released another family-oriented comedy called “Lincoln’s Favorite Jokes.” Drawing on a wide range of inspirations – from 1920s Parisian cabaret to the pre-Superbad Aptow canon – Lincoln Wolf’s emotional range and Chaplin-esque timing will leave audiences hungry for more.

- A. O. Scott, New York Times

As searing a dramatic achievement as it is an uproarious comic tour-de-force. Shortlisted for the Oscars or the Academy has lost its mind.

- Michael Norbeck, film enthusiast

Very cute! Watch out though, Lincoln may be sharing these videos with his therapist when he’s older. ha.

- Elektra Rose, officemate with awesome name

I just witnessed the greatest production of talent, not only of the principal actor but the brilliant script and voice-over of the producer. Of course, the main and original producer was Shawna, the mother of the brilliant actor. One has to give the award to all three.

- Marie Hausman, Lincoln’s great grandmother

For when he gets a little older: www.oldjewstellingjokes.com

- David Sampliner, not-yet-old Jew

Brilliant! Already conveys such a range of emotion that far exceeds any of his 25 and under competition. The next Jewish Paul Newman!

- Russ Agdern, even-younger-than-David Jew

There awo things you never want to see being made — laws and sausages.

For an example of laws, see the TARP bailout.

For an example of sausages, see this video:

The first movie ever produced by the precocious Lincoln Wolf Hausman, age 2 weeks.

And then I’ll stop posting video of my kid, I swear. But its an understandable compulsion, right? He’s really frickin’ cute.