Nathaniel Witherell's medical director loses his license to prescribe opioids

new state-mandated poster at nathaniel witherell’s entrance

Francis X. Walsh caught dishing out pain killers like candy to his private patients

Some years ago a friend from the Back Country told me there was a doctor in town who had a thriving practice supplying opioids to her peers. She wouldn’t tell me his name, so I don’t know whether this is the same guy, and he may very well not be; Greenwich residents have long enjoyed the services of a number of physicians who thrived by selling various mood-enhancing drugs to their patients. Back in the 60s, one particular doctor specialized in dosing females, whose stay-at-home lifestyle enabled them to visit during his daytime office hours. I do know the name of that doctor, but he departed from this earth long ago, so why sully his name now?

And besides, it’s not just MDs who pad their income in unconventional ways; dentists do it too, as this bit of doggerel reminds us:

There once was a dentist named Stone 
Who saw all his patients alone. 
In a fit of depravity 
He filled the wrong cavity, 
And my, how his practice has grown!

Well of course they do: America's going to Hell in a hand basket, rapidly

Majority of Americans support our new socialist Congressman’s call for a 70% tax rate.

The majority of Americans also have no knowledge of economics, or history, and a huge percentage f them think that socialism will work here, despite its failure in every country that’s tried it.

This phenomenon can be attributed at least in part to the use of communist Howard Zinn’s “A History of the American People” as the standard history text in schools across the country, including Greenwich. Which, of course, was Zinn’s intention.

I despair for our future.

Price cut in the northern territory

Life in the 1930s seems to have been pretty glum. Perhaps the Depression influenced building styles.

15 Reynwood Manor (North Street, really, but with a fancy address), didn’t sell at $8.9 million from May, 2017 through its listing expiration in November. The owners switched agents and selected Tamar Lurie to represent them. She returned the house to the market at $9.250 million, a funny thing to do, raising the price when a house won’t sell, but Tamar’s always had a wicked sense of humor.

Today the price was dropped to $8.995, still $95,000 higher than the failed price of 2017. Tamar’s such card!

As an aside, if their’s a colder, cheerless house in Greenwicb, I haven’t seen it.

The man's a genius

CBS News’ head’s brother, Ben Rhodes, once boasted how easily he and his boss Obama turned the naive child reporters who cover Washington into “an echo chamber” so that the administration could whoop through the Iran nuclear deal. Hat tip to them, but The Donald managed to change the entire news cycle merely by serving fast food at the White House.

The press has gone crazy, digging up nutritionists who’ll condemn the very idea of offering 300-lb lineman a Big Mac and fries (the Clemson players loved them” and over at the Washington Post, their “fact checker” determined that Trump hadn’t really ordered 1,000 hamburgers —more like 300, according to the intrepid reporter — and, kid you not,, calculated that Trump’s claim that the hamburgers, stacked, wouldn’t actually build a tower “a mile high”. h

No one expects reporters to investigate or write about the secret, deep-state conspiracy by the CIA and FBI to bring down a sitting president, but Trump at least distracted them from continuing their daily Russian collusion meme.

Easy as stealing candy from babies.

UPDATE: Do you remember when the press savagely attacked Bill Clinton and, later, Obama, for eating at McDonalds? Neither do I. Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence, by the way, loved the food, and he wasn’t the only player to praise the President’s choice of what to serve

not a peep

Good Lord, now Gillette has shifted its target audience to pedophiles

Disgusting

What happens when we stop teaching the history of western civilization

SJWs go apeshit over a white actress portraying Cleopatra, a white woman.

Cleopatra was the last ruler of the Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty, but modern students have no knowledge of western civilization, because their teachers are the product of a educational system that stopped teaching that subject decades ago. “Dead White Men” have nothing to offer, whether it’s philosophy, literature, or art, so why even discuss it?

And this ignorance really doesn’t matter, does it? I unknowingly witnessed a harbinger of the new order when I was a student of Dr. John Silber in a course on Plato, back in 1976. A fellow student, a candidate for a doctorate in philosophy, was challenged by our professor on the facts and logic of her totally moronic argument: she wailed, “but don’t my feelings matter?” Those of you familiar with Silber can guess his response: “Madam, I don’t give a damn about your feelings!”

That was then, this is now, and our culture is not the better for it.

At least these children recognize Egypt as located on the continent of Africa: I hadn’t realized that we’re still teaching rudimentary geography.

Catch a falling star, and die. Or not — how’s your luck?

WSJ: Golf-home owners find themselves in a hole.

When Mitch Steller first moved into his house on a lush 117-acre golf course in Southern California, “this was like the Garden of Eden, having a golf course in my backyard,” he said.

Today, his Poway, Calif., home overlooks dry, dead grass in place of a once-verdant fairway. The golf club closed in 2017. “The fairways are brown, the greens are gone, the buildings are being vandalized,” says Mr. Steller, a 70-year-old maritime-management consultant.

Forty years after developers started blanketing the Sunbelt with housing developments built around golf, many courses are closing amid a decline in golf participation, leaving homeowners to grapple with the consequences. People often believe a course will bolster their property values. But many are discovering the opposite can now be true—and legal disputes are erupting as communities fight over how to handle the struggling courses.

“There are hundreds of other communities in this situation, and they’re trapped and they don’t know what to do,” says Peter Nanula, chief executive of Concert Golf Partners, a golf club owner-operator that owns about 20 private clubs across the U.S. One of his current projects is the rehabilitation of a recently acquired club in Florida that had shut one of its three golf courses and sued residents who had stopped paying membership fees.

More than 200 golf courses closed in 2017 across the country, while only about 15 new ones opened, according to the National Golf Foundation, a golf market-research provider. Florida-based development consultant Blake Plumley said he gets about seven phone calls every week seeking advice about struggling courses, from course owners or homeowners’ associations. He said most of those matters end up in court, and predicted that the U.S. is only about halfway through the number of golf-course closures that will eventually occur.

When a course closes, prices for nearby homes typically fall about 25%, Mr. Plumley said. Prices can plummet 40% or 50% if a contentious legal battle arises, as potential home buyers balk at the uncertainty accompanying litigation.

When Pal Nancy and I were returning from Bangor, Maine, to Greenwich in 1983, the Sunday River ski resort was belly-up, and slope-side condos on the abandoned property were going for $15,000. The bet was, of course, whether new owners would appear and reopen the place. If so, the value of those condos would soar; otherwise, they would drop to nothing. I was convinced that Sunday River would reopen, and was oh-so-temped to buy in, but moving to Greenwich, even then, was quite a hurdle, and had we taken on debt to gamble on a ski condo, we’d be stretching our resources to the limit: unlike today’s 30-year-old whiz kids, our pockets were shallow. In any event, we didn’t make the trade, and aren’t I sorry now.

But my point is, Sunday River would have been a fling at a real estate play, with any exposure limited to what was flung at it. Buying a primary residence, with important money, for a price supported on what could be an ephemeral feature: small, private college, ski resort, golf course, what-have-you, can be disastrous.

Just ask those WSJ buyers.

Fore!

Our Village Idiot and state representative Freddie Camillio should stick with what he knows about: argyle sweaters and doggies

Freddie’s in the kennel, you’ll know him by his hat

He’s co-sponsoring a bill to prevent poor people from earning a living trimming fingernails.

The lawmakers have filed a bill to amend state law to require estheticians, eyelash technicians and nail technicians to meet minimum education requirements and get a license. The proposed law would also say any business offering nail or esthetic services must be managed by a licensed nail technician or esthetician.

Licensure of nail technicians and estheticians would be overseen by the state Department of Public Health. The department already licenses and regulates barbers, cosmetologists, tattoo artists, massage therapists, perfumists, dieticians, dentists, doctors, nurses and other professions.

Since 2002, about a dozen bills on regulating nail salons or nail technicians have been filed, but most did not receive a public hearing.

This year, a Republican co-sponsor could signal the measure will get bipartisan support.

Camillo said he does not favor “big government,” but after speaking to a Greenwich esthetician, he worried that not licensing these professionals was a “public health and public safety issue.” He will be prepared to rebut those who call it an “anti-business bill,” he said.

Camillo said he thought proposal could bring in money for the state.

These licensing laws are under attack by both libertarians and advocates for the poor, because they prevent otherwise-uneducated po’ folk from earning a living. Hair braiders, for instance, are required in some states to undergo 300 hours of training before they’re allowed to open shop. Other “professions” demand even more. Someone with no resources is expected to come up with the cash to pay for two-four months of “education” before even qualifying to apply for, and pay for, a state license, and then be required to operate as a paid worker under the control of an “esthetician”? And what the hell irreparable damage could a “perfumer” or a makeup beautician, or an eyelash trimmer cause that demands Fred Camillo’s intervention?

These licensing laws are designed and promoted by existing businesses to thwart competition (did you know that you need a license to engage in interior decorating?), not to protect the public, and even a low IQ Republican should recognize that, and refrain from joining his Democrat peers in quashing the few opportunities available to minorities?

Related comment. if you want to know what’s wrong with the Republican party, look to whom we nominate as candidates right here in Greenwich:Camillo, and Livvy Floren: it’s the same problem across the country.

The western world has gone insane

Instapundit:

JANUARY 14, 2019

LIVING IN THE CRAZY YEARS:  Men who identify as women are being invited for cervical smear tests even though they don’t have a cervix. “However, women who identify as male are not being offered crucial routine breast screenings or cervical cancer checks.” Well, of course not. Men don’t need those things, that would be crazy!

Get woke, go broke: Gillette denounces men, drops male customers in favor of women

I’ve used various Gillette products for fifty years, but they if don’t want my business, and this ad describing men as bullying, toxic thugs shouts exactly that, then I’m delighted to oblige them. Wait til they discover that the new demand of activist ladies is that ladies stop shaving their armpits and legs. That leaves Lady Gillette B.O. retardant, I suppose, but that’s a small market.

List here of all P&G products to boycott. I’ll miss Bounty paper towels: the best of them all, and the Mr. Clean magic eraser, but otherwise, there are better products out there, and I’ll do without P&G’s only two best of category brands to send a small message back up the channel.