| Sleep tests move to comfy quarters
Along with clean sheets and a continental breakfast, some local hotel guests can now get something else: a diagnosis. Mary Washington Hospital recently signed a contract to rent five rooms at the Massaponax Hampton Inn. Since October, patients have been getting tested for sleep apnea, restless-leg syndrome and other disorders in the comfortable hotel setting. Terry Enders of Spotsylvania County was one of the center's first patients. Enders had been tested for sleep apnea before, at the hospital's main lab on Princess Anne Street in Fredericksburg. He said he appreciated the comfort and familiarity of the hotel during his follow-up test. "It's difficult enough to do a test like this," Enders said. "This is nice." Putting a sleep lab in a hotel is a new trend, notably among big university-affiliated sleep centers such as those at Duke and Vanderbilt.
It’s Time to Hold Democratic House Leaders in Contempt
Enough is enough. Like many of us, after having watched helplessly as the Bush administration trampled the Constitution and made a mockery of checks and balances over the course of five bitter years, I was hopeful when the American people elected a Democratic Congress in November of 2006. Finally, I imagined, we would have a whiff of legality and the hint of a restoration of the rule of law in the land. Perhaps we would even have congressional committees to oversee the administration's subversions of the rule of law and investigate the wide range of abuses that it had perpetrated since 2001. There has been a bit of movement — which is why the thousands of Americans I have met who are appalled at these abuses but feel powerless to raise their voices effectively should take heart, but not stop their fight.
China can build things. Why can't India?
Shanghai has brilliant new skyscrapers and museums and parks and trains – and Bombay can't manage to have a decent airport. According to Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal, it's all because of democracy. “There is a different model of growth in our country," Sibal told reporters in Beijing, according to this report from wire service PTI carried on Indian portal Rediff.com. “We can't, for example, build a Pudong overnight." Well, neither did the Chinese. Pudong today is the result of more than a decade's worth of work and planning and investment. The place is hardly paradise; Pudong can feel overwhelming, especially along the district's broad boulevard. I'm not saying that Indian officials should be trying to replicate Pudong in Bombay. But falling back on the old “We're a democracy, don't expect too much of us" argument doesn't cut it.
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