Harvey C Roys, Jr., MD - 1918-2009

My father-in-law passed away Saturday morning, 1/3/09.

Harvey C Roys, Jr., MD - 1918-2009

Harvey C. Roys, Jr., MD was a leader in medicine and the church in the Seattle area for 50 years. He improved many lives in both areas.

He was in college in the late 1930s preparing for medical school when the University of Oklahoma took young men into medical school after 3 years of college. He earned the MD in 1943, did a one year internship, then entered the Army and served in The Battle of Okinawa in a field hospital for the 57th Field Artillery Batallion & earned the Bronze Service Star. Seeing ugly, painful tropical skin diseases, he chose to specialize in dermatology.

He married Ruth Jacobson of Seattle on Aug 9, 1947. They traveled to New York City for his specialty training. He had a private practice in the Medical-Dental Building downtown from 1950 to 1988, then he worked with family practitioners, teaching them about skin diseases. Adjunct Prof at the University of Washington Medical School. He was board certified and became a "go to" guy: When you don't know what you are seeing or need a second opinion ask Harvey Roys. He retired in the early 1990s, but he continued to care for people, i.e., be a medical doctor, the rest of his life.

Active in the Southern Baptist Church, he was a popular preacher and often took the place of sick or vacationing pastors. He started at least 3 churches in the Seattle area - Lake Washington, now Lake City, Baptist in Lake City, Seattle, Bothell First Baptist and one in Juanita/Kirkland. He was the senior pastor at Brooklyn Avenue Baptist Church in the University District of Seattle in the 1960s. He continued preaching until about age 75. He always enjoyed telling jokes and playing chess.

He is survived by Ruth Jacobson Roys of Seattle, sons Harold in Upland, California, Curtis in Issaquah, Washington and Charles in Eastham, Massachusetts and daughter Virginia Hebron in Lake Forest Park, Washington.

Service: 2 pm Saturday, January 10 at Bayview Manor, 11 W. Aloha St., Seattle.
See also Father's Day 2008.

Cuba - 50 year of failure

Ignore the platitudes for Fidel. "But everyone gets free heath care." Health care has to be free when everyone is a slave. Look at the facts.

The real story is that a prosperous Cuba was turned into ruins in just five decades.

Investors' Business Daily editorial

Its inflation-adjusted gross domestic product is a mere 5% of what it was in 1958, the year before Castro took over, according to Jorge Salazar-Carillo of Florida International University.

"It's a major failure," Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a University of Pittsburgh economist, told IBD. "Cuba is unable to increase food production to meet its needs and now imports 84% of its food. Cuba produced 7 million tons of sugar in 1952. This year, it's 1.5 million tons. This is the result of economic policy of collectivization, killing of individual incentive, inefficiency, constant changes of policy."

Reliable data are hard to come by. S&P refuses to rate the country for that reason. The regime conceals its failures. But if long lines at the Spanish embassy seeking immigration aren't enough of an indicator, the chronology of Cuba's economy tell an important story:

1957: Cuban GDP is about $2.8 billion, unadjusted for inflation.
1959: Castro and his guerrillas take over and begin confiscating U.S.-owned private businesses.
1960: President Eisenhower imposes trade embargo, excluding food and medicine; Castro responds by "rapidly nationalizing most U.S. enterprises," as he himself wrote.
1961: President Kennedy tightens the embargo. Castro blames it for plant shutdowns, parts shortages and 7,000 transportation breakdowns a month, leaving 25% of public buses inoperable. He then targets Cuban companies for expropriation.

1962: Begins food rationing. Half of passenger rail cars go out of service from lack of maintenance.
1963: President Kennedy freezes Cuban assets in the U.S.
1965: Signs deal with USSR to reschedule $500 million in debt.
1966: Signs new deal with Soviets for $91 million in trade credits.

1968: Begins petroleum rationing, says Soviets cut supplies.

1969: Begins sugar rationing in January, announces state plan to produce 10 million tons of sugar by the following year.

1970: Castro announces only 8.5 million tons of sugar produced. Blames U.S. Diverts 85% of all Cuban trade to the USSR.
1973: Tries for the first time to tie wages to productivity.
1974: Ramps up wartime spending to send 3,000 Cuban troops to Africa. It hits $125 per person, highest in Latin America, by 1988.
1975: President Ford announces softening of the embargo, letting foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies sell products in Cuba.
1979: President Carter lets Cuban-Americans visit family in Cuba. Soviet aid totals $17 billion from 1961-79, or 30% of Cuba's GDP.

1980: Economic hardship forces Castro to permit farmers to sell surplus to state quotas in private markets with unregulated prices. 100,000 Cubans flee the island for the U.S. via the Mariel boatlift.
1982: Cuba doubles military spending. President Reagan re-establishes travel ban and prohibits spending money on the island.
1983: Cuba signs accord in Paris to refinance its foreign debt.
1984: "Armed Forces of Latin America" yearbook says: "Cuba is probably the world's most completely militarized country."

1985: Cuba signs new debt restructuring, blaming Mexico's crisis for its debacle. Permits selling of private housing for the first time. Total aid from USSR since 1961 hits $40 billion.

1986: Castro defaults on $10.9 billion in Paris Club debt. Blames sugar prices. Abolishes coffee breaks, cuts subsidies. Soviets give $3 billion more in credit and aid. Castro bans farmers markets.

1987: Stops paying entirely on $10.9 billion Paris Club debts.

1988: Forbids release of inflation data, making it impossible for researchers to assess Cuban economic performance.

1990: By official statistics, GDP per capita declines 10.3%.

1991: Sugar crop falls to 7 million tons. Politburo purged. USSR ends $5 billion in subsidies. "Special Period" of austerity begins.

1992: Horse-drawn carts replace cars, oxen replace Soviet tractors. Time magazine reports tin cans are recycled into drinking cups and banana peels into Cuban sandals.

1993: World Bank says GDP contracts 15.1% per capita, as industrial output plunges 40% per person.
1994: Some private-sector activity permitted. GDP per capita shows no growth, but Castro hails "recovery." Agricultural output down 54% from 1989, with sugar at 4 million tons. Castro blames bad finances, and "errors and inefficiency." Food consumption, according to USDA, falls 36%. Some 32,000 Cubans flee for Florida.

1995: Havana admits GDP fell 35% from 1989 to 1993. Vice President Carlos Lage claims GDP grew 2.5%, as inflation hits 19%.
1996: Castro hikes private business taxes. President Clinton tightens embargo. Castro claims GDP rose to 7% in year.
1997: GDP reported up 2.5%, falling short of 5% projection. Failed sugar harvest, bad weather, crop pests, foreign debts blamed.

1998: GDP growth claimed at 1.2% with no inflation. U.S. embargo, global financial crisis, low commodity prices, too much rainfall, Hurricane Georges and severe drought blamed. Castro urges other debtor nations to form a cartel.
1999: GDP claimed at 6.2%. Subsidies from Venezuela begin. Castro blames U.S. dollar for woes and urges use of the euro.
2000: Cuban court rules U.S. owes Cuba $121 billion for embargo.

2001: 3.6% GDP growth, output remains below 1989. Blames loss of subsidies, second-worst sugar harvest ever at 3.5 million tons.
2002: Freezes dollar sales to preserve foreign reserves. Shuts down 118 factories due to power shortages. Buys $125 million in U.S. food. Defaults on $750 million in Japanese debts.
2003: Earns more tight sanctions from President Bush and European Union over dissident roundups. GDP rises just 1.8%.

2004: Castro declares GDP a capitalist instrument, adjusts calculations, declares GDP growing at 5%.
2005: Foreign firms asked to leave and market liberalization scrapped. Imports hit three-times the level of exports. Hurricanes blamed for falling farm output. Sugar figures not released. Castro calls economic crisis an "enemy fabrication." Claims GDP up 11%.
2006: Castro claims 12.5% economic growth, "despite the crippling effects of the U.S. embargo," Luxner News notes.
2007: 7.5% GDP growth claimed; adverse weather said to have affected construction and agriculture.
2008: 4.3% GDP growth claimed, far short of 8% forecast. "One of the most difficult years since the collapse of the Soviet Union," economy minister says. Hurricanes and fuel prices blamed.

That, in sum, is Cuba after 50 years. But lest you get the wrong idea, Cuba hasn't failed at everything: "Given [Castro's] goal — to destroy capitalism and entrench themselves — they're a success," said Humberto Fontova, an expert on Castro's regime.

An atheist who believes Africa needs God

This atheist admits what he sees: that Christian missionaries make a big difference. Not just the physical things accomplished, but the changed lives.

Matthew Parris - Times Online :

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

I used to avoid this truth by applauding - as you can - the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It's a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.

But this doesn't fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.

First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.

... Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.

Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.

And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.

Read the whole thing.

Twas the night before in Seattle

"Twas the week before Christmas, and next to the Sound,
Not a creature was stirring, for all were snowbound.
Greyhound busses quit running, no matter the fare,
And the mail men and garbage said they just couldn't get there!

The children were sliding Queen Anne Hill on their sleds.
While roofs were collapsing on old people's heads.
And mamma in her boots and I in my cap,
Were stuck in the snow and ice and such crap.

When at the Home Depot there arose such a clatter,
I trudged from my car to see what was the matter.
A group of sad souls were waving their cash,
They couldn't buy shovels, they'd sold in a flash.

Tires were spinning and just wouldn't go,
And chains lay broken in the dirty old snow.
Then, what to my surprise did my eyes look over and see?
Eight representatives of SDOT,

With a fat politician so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it was Mayor "Salt Nick".
More rapid than gun bans, his excuses they came,
"To save our environment the roads stay the same!

On Broadway! On Boren! On Yesler and Denny!,
To clear off these roads would cost such a penny!
Sliding down Thomas and onto a wall!
The busses hung over I-5, ready to fall!

Still, he insisted it wasn't his fault,
As the world's greenest mayor he wouldn't use SALT!
That stuff's corrosive, could hurt the fish.
(But the Puget Sound's SALT WATER you ignorant kish !)

So snowy Seattle continued to stew,
But Mayor "Salt Nick" just hadn't a clue. [Mayor Greg Nickels]
While I stood there astonished, on nearby TV sets,
I saw the airport was packed, no de-icer for jets.

Since others couldn't get down the roads to the ferry,
The city decided to close Denny and Cherry.
Police cars and firetrucks were highly impaired,
Citizens got no impression that Mayor Salt Nick cared.

A house that caught fire, or a rape in progress,
Was less important than "going green" in Seattle - I guess!
An accident closed the I-90 bridge,
And people couldn't drive down Phinney Ridge.

Shovels, and salt had just flown off the shelf,
And I laughed when I heard him in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
He tried to convey we had nothing to dread;

He spoke many words, but did little work,
Yet Seattle knew they should never have elected this jerk.
Then thumbing his nose at his citizens' plight,
He turned to the crowd and exclaimed "We've done right!",

And then to his limo refusing to yield,
He left to get solar panels installed on Qwest Field.
But I heard him exclaim, as he skidded past me
"Happy Christmas to all, heck, I give myself a 'B' ".

from my friend Lisa.

Depression? We have no idea

During the Great Depression of 1929 to 1940 there was no waiting line at Outback Steakhouse, which we saw last week. Everyone was hungry!

What about now?

Current unemployment has climbed from under 5 per cent to 7 per cent. During the real depression it was over 15 per cent for over 4 years; spend years above 20 per cent and reached 25 per cent. It didn't get below 15 per cent until World War II. FDR's takeover of the economy didn't end it, but prolonged it!

Via Carpe Diem, the blog of Prof M. J. Perry

Canada's health care monopoly: A Short Course in Brain Surgery

Many people want the dream of taking all health-care decisions away from individuals and leaving them to the "single payer" government. And no one is uninsured. But look at Canada. That benefit comes at the high cost of denied care. The high-tech, higher-cost procedures are burdened by long waiting times and DENIAL. When the caring bureaucrats says "No," it doesn't mean the system won;t pay for it, but You Can't Have the Surgery. Just plain NO.

Canadians have a safety outlet - the US border. Every day Canadians drive or fly into the US and pay for their own care - that Canada denied. The key factor is often time. In many cases the bureaucrats will eventually approve, then the wait of weeks or months for the surgeon and facility to be available. If the patient survives, she gets the care. But many don't survive.

On The Fence Films :: A Short Course in Brain Surgery:

In A Short Course in Brain Surgery, filmmaker Stuart Browning shows the callousness of "single-payer", government-run health care systems as practiced in Ontario, Canada. His film highlights the plight of Lindsay McCreith, an Ontario man with a cancerous brain tumor who went to Buffalo, NY to receive the timely medical care that is rationed in his home country.

It's only a few minutes. Watch it.

Chicago Politics: From Scandal to Surrealism to Burris

Too strange. Blago's pick for US Senate: Roland Burris.

Radio host David Boze at MyNorthwest.com:

Roland Burris, Blago's pick for United States Senator, has built a monument to himself...literally. The mausoleum he built for himself in Oak Woods Cemetery on Chicago's South Side includes a bold text "TRAIL BLAZER" and a list of "MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS" just in case anyone walking through the graveyard wants to see what a powerful man he was...or is since he's still alive. AWESOME WEIRD

Thomas Paine and crisis during the Revolution

After the Continental Army was driven out of New Jersey, an article titled "The American Crisis" was published in the Pennsylvania Journal, DECEMBER 23, 1776.

Written by an aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene named Thomas Paine, General Washington ordered it read to the troops:

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

Thomas Paine continued:

"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly....Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated... God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction...who have so earnestly...sought to avoid the calamities of war."

Paine concluded:

"The whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back...by a few broken forces headed by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen... 'Show your faith by your works,' that God may bless you...I thank God, that I fear not."

Via: American Minute

I learned of the importance of Tom Paine while reading Washington's Crossing. Author: David Hackett Fischer. Excellent account of amazing true history.

Collision - The merger of Delta and Northwest airlines

How will they become one airline when they can't work together as two?

Local News | Planes bump on ground at Sea-Tac | Seattle Times Newspaper:

Two flights bound for the Midwest from Seattle were canceled this morning when the passenger-filled planes backed into each other as they left their gates, airport officials said.

No one was injured.

A Delta 737-800 plane, Flight 1288 to Cincinnati, was backing away from its gate at the Concourse Terminal at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, shortly before 7 a.m, according to airport spokeswoman Terri-Ann Betancourt.

At the same time, Betancourt said, a Northwest 757-300 plane, Flight 620 to Minneapolis, was backing away from its gate at the South Satellite Terminal.

Say goodnight, Caroline: How JFK's daughter flubbed the audition to become the next Senator Kennedy

Interesting observation on Caroline Schlossberg's campaign to carry on Camlot.

NY Daily News quoting:

... But a strange thing is happening on the way to the coronation. The wheels of the bandwagon are coming off. Fantasy is giving way to inescapable truth. * That truth is that Kennedy is not ready for the job and doesn't deserve it. Somebody who loves her should tell her.

Her quest is becoming a cringe-inducing experience, as painful to watch as it must be to endure. Because she is the only survivor of that dreamy time nearly 50 years ago, she remains an iconic figure. But in the last few days, her mini-campaign has proved she has little to offer New Yorkers except her name.

Her handlers and family enablers insist she feels no entitlement to the Senate job, yet there is no other possible reason to give it to her. Her name is the sole reason she even dares go for it. Camelot must be Gaelic for chutzpah.

... Kennedy apparently decided to go public to build support and scare off others, including Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, whose nasty divorce from her cousin still roils both clans. Kennedy also had to introduce herself to Democratic party leaders because, other than endorsing Obama, her politics were a mystery.

But the minute she faced the routine questions that help define a candidate for virtually any office, she had nothing to say. There was no "there" there.

"I just hope everybody understands that it is not a campaign but that I have a lifelong devotion to public service," she said during her first-ever visit to Rochester. "I've written books on the Constitution and the importance of individual participation. And I've raised my family. I think I really could help bring change to Washington."

... "I'm really coming into this as somebody who isn't, you know, part of the system, who obviously, you know, stands for the values of, you know, the Democratic Party. I know how important it is to, you know, to be my own person. And, you know, and that would be obviously true with my relationship with the mayor.