THURSDAY NIGHT IS HEALTH CARE CHANGE NIGHT, a weekly Daily Kos Health Care Series

I was Medical Director of a charity-based clinic for six years.  The Clinic was established by charity that started with a thrift store in a church, and grew to include a sheltered workshop, a day shelter, a place for free breakfast and lunches, job and family counseling, low-cost housing management, as well as the original thrift store.  Unfortunately, circumstances, the immediate post-9/11 economy, and inexperienced management eventually caused the charity - and the Clinic - to close down.  It broke my heart to have to give up that practice. as it was one of the most fulfilling practices of medicine I have ever participated in.  This is my story of the Clinic.

 No, I don't think we need to start getting all highbrow here at Daily Kos, but I was invited to a "soiree" tonight that involves some of my favorite things - music and people.  My down-the-alley neighbors, Mark and Barbara, regularly host Saturday Night Patio Music get-togethers to introduce people to up-and-coming recording artists that we otherwise would not have a chance to meet.  These are often singer-songwriters in the folk/Indie/World Music tradition, and as the evening wears on, acoustic instruments materialize and the people at our end of the alley are serenaded with some pretty darn good acoustic jams.  When I saw va dare's picture of her picking on her new mandolin last week, I got inspired to take out my Flatiron that has patiently waited in its case for these many months, and started re-learning "Wildwood Flower" and "Soldier's Joy" and other fiddle tunes.

So join me below the fold, and let's talk about chamber music and some of its New World offspring.

 Now that the gifts for family and friends have been wrapped and labeled, now that the cards have been sent to the real folks in my life, it is time for me to think of what kinds of Christmas presents I should give to those individuals who, for good or bad, have taken up much of my time and energy this Election Year.
 So, join me below the fold, and see what I have given, and maybe add your suggestions for completing my Christmas List.

  Military Doctors at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility regularly force-feed detainees who are trying to fight back in the only way they can - by going on hunger strikes.  How can physicians, who take an oath to do no harm, deal with the gap between military orders and their own ethics?
  A look at this....