Mozart at age 70?; Google has done it again!
If Mozart Had Had Better Health Care, written by Anthony Tommasini for the NYTimes is a very interesting article that gives us pause--- What IF Mozart, and all the other great minds/talents, had better health care? Mr. Tommasini focuses on Mozart and presents a very realistic scenario of how many things in music would be different. For one, we would have many more musical pieces from Mozart (he wrote 22 works in the span of 23 years).
However, as we had written in a previous entry (see the entry for August 31st), recent studies have shown that your longevity is not necessarily due to your genes. Therefore, it does not matter that Mozart’s father, mother and sister lived to a ripe old age—perhaps even if there was better health care. Today, we do have better health care and yes, we are living longer every day; however, we are still fighting diseases for which we do not have a cure and do not fully understand-- for example, cancer.
Even with better health care now, most people can’t afford to receive the health care they need—the treatments that would cure them. As written in previous entries—30% of those between the ages of 18-24, 25% between the ages of 25-34, and overall about 16% of all Americans have no health insurance. Yes, we have better health care—but what does it matter if there are so many millions of Americans who can’t afford to receive this better health care?
Google has done it again—and now with its new philanthropic entity, Google.org. The quote by Andrew Cassel (The Economy Google tries to refresh our notion of charity, The Philadelphia Inquirer) explains quite nicely the decision to make Google.org a for-profit entity, instead of the traditional non-profit organization: it is “a conceptual breakthrough.” (Mr. Cassel shouldn’t be surprised-- everything Google does is a “conceptual breakthrough”).
And we agree with Mr. Cassel, nonprofit organizations may be limited due to our laws for nonprofit organizations. In addition, as Mr. Cassel writes, just because an entity is nonprofit does not necessarily mean it is altruistic—or established for the common good. (You know those tax incentives for nonprofits are VERY enticing.)
We applaud Google for this “conceptual breakthrough” – but again, we’re not surprised.
After all, they are Google.
However, as we had written in a previous entry (see the entry for August 31st), recent studies have shown that your longevity is not necessarily due to your genes. Therefore, it does not matter that Mozart’s father, mother and sister lived to a ripe old age—perhaps even if there was better health care. Today, we do have better health care and yes, we are living longer every day; however, we are still fighting diseases for which we do not have a cure and do not fully understand-- for example, cancer.
Even with better health care now, most people can’t afford to receive the health care they need—the treatments that would cure them. As written in previous entries—30% of those between the ages of 18-24, 25% between the ages of 25-34, and overall about 16% of all Americans have no health insurance. Yes, we have better health care—but what does it matter if there are so many millions of Americans who can’t afford to receive this better health care?
Google has done it again—and now with its new philanthropic entity, Google.org. The quote by Andrew Cassel (The Economy Google tries to refresh our notion of charity, The Philadelphia Inquirer) explains quite nicely the decision to make Google.org a for-profit entity, instead of the traditional non-profit organization: it is “a conceptual breakthrough.” (Mr. Cassel shouldn’t be surprised-- everything Google does is a “conceptual breakthrough”).
And we agree with Mr. Cassel, nonprofit organizations may be limited due to our laws for nonprofit organizations. In addition, as Mr. Cassel writes, just because an entity is nonprofit does not necessarily mean it is altruistic—or established for the common good. (You know those tax incentives for nonprofits are VERY enticing.)
We applaud Google for this “conceptual breakthrough” – but again, we’re not surprised.
After all, they are Google.
posted by CareTALKGals(tm) at 9/17/2006 09:10:00 PM
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