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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Crime in Calcutta(available internationally with American release slated for early next year), the New England-bred author builds on his distinction as the contemporary writer most responsible for the West's vision of Asia. By staying low to the ground (mostly by rail) and true to his raw, first impressions - masterfully bending the dullest of travel encounters into revelations - he has etched indelible snapshots of much of the globe. His 1973 Saint Jack evoked Singapore in the swinging days before its turn toward a more staid Yuppiedom; Kowloon Tong captured the 1997 Hong Kong handover through the petty business...
...folks in our neighborhood are hard to operate on. They are suspicious. They ran away, years ago, from war and hunger and government officials making powerful speeches. They escaped places they loved, where they first had plenty, then enough and then nothing. They made the boat but the new land of opportunity was also one of educated opportunists and swindlers - the diplomas on my wall don't impress them. It takes a while to gain their trust...
...have all bothered him for years. Unlike Tony, he likes physical therapy. I've been warning him about letting the problems go too long, especially the numb hands, but since the '90s he has refused every procedure. About four months ago, something changed with him too. He requested surgery - first a shoulder, then the hands. He's been having an operation a month since then, quite happily. He still has another scheduled...
...patient population. Not with all the patients; the very well-to-do still show little concern for the future availability of care or what it will cost. But this group generally means business anyway; they've looked me up and are usually ready for an operation when they first come. The lawyers and teachers, similarly, don't seem too worried about losing access to my services anytime soon. And some fraction of patients always seems clueless about the world beyond the tips of their noses: they don't worry about insurance or anything else as far as I can tell...
...those patients in the middle - Medicare patients like Ira and Tony, the younger HMO types doing well but working harder and harder, the aging professionals dealing with their first serious pains - they seem to be of a new mind lately. So do the unemployed who foresee the day their COBRA benefits will end, and the still fully employed whose company plans in 2010 entail higher deductibles, higher copays and reduced benefits. Whatever their situation, these patients are less interested in therapy and anti-inflammatories, or in just waiting to see if the pain stops by itself. (Quite often it does...