THE hump day hiatus

This is the ultimate Wednesday – aka Hump Day – of the year, at least in this hemisphere. If you can’t be in Augusta, at least there’s this, a poor substitute indeed. And this splendid bonus:

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

We turn our 100,000 candlepower spotlights on two cover stories this issue: preventing strokes (always important this time of year in Augusta) and speeding. Let’s take a moment here for just one of those: speeding, and why it’s ineffective and illogical. Driving at 60 mph, you’re covering a mile a minute, right? If you spend that entire hour at 65 …

Two Music Therapy Classics

Music is such a richly diversified tapestry that its ability to provide therapy is virtually unlimited. It can exhilarate, sadden, calm, inform; it can make us introspective, or just plain crazy with emotion. Today, let’s open the musical vault for two all-time classics that really need no introduction. Even so, here are a few words about today’s B-side, James Brown’s …

What’s in your wallet?

The question is posed by way of a mid-week break, better known as the celebrated Hump Day Hiatus. Today’s HDH asks (very obliquely and also very beautifully), are you happy doing what you’re doing? Do you want to keep doing what you’re doing? We ask because you’re about to meet a coal miner. Wait. Former coal miner. Who is now …

Unbelievable

This provides convincing proof of the insanity of texting while driving like nothing I’ve ever seen. Side-by-side in-car cameras simultaneously show the driver and the roadway ahead. It’s frightening. And what is perhaps even scarier: you could be an ardent No-Texting-While-Driving person and still be creamed by one of the drivers you’re about to watch.

Nighttime in the Alps

The Swiss Alps is our destination for this week’s Hump Day Hiatus. Here’s your chance to get away, even if for only three minutes and 16 seconds. Sit back and savor the scenery (in full screen mode). Helvetia's Dream from Alessandro Della Bella on Vimeo.

Do the right thing. Always.

It’s this week’s PSA (or Public Service Announcement). Doing the right thing can have a lasting positive effect on your health and wellbeing. When you don’t do the right thing, the damage can be permanent. Exhibit #1: Marty Stroud, whose face you see below. Mr. Stroud, through a combination of arrogance, laziness, prejudice and dereliction of duty, helped send an …

Today’s oxymoron: right on time, the latest issue. As you can plainly see, the cover story is about medical identity theft, a crime that could send its victims to an early grave. Read all about it, and then keep your guard up. Also in this issue: Doctors, what about that insufferable patient of yours? Check out page 11. We have …