Today, you are going to get a hodge podge of mini-columns at the same low price as always. *****

 In the past two years, I have had too many reasons – seven — to visit people in hospitals in Saskatoon. In most cases, they were multiple visits. A year ago, I wrote about the logjam of patients in emergency department hallways. The government recognized the need for change. It’s a challenge, I am sure, but nothing has been done.

During my most recent visit, the number of paramedics in the hallway just outside the emergency department at St. Paul’s reached a new level of disgrace. With eight ambulances outside, it meant 16 paramedics were inside, standing two-by-two with their patients. Understandably, they looked bored, as they sipped coffee and made small talk. How fulfilling it must be to spend four hours – the average is three hours — of your shift standing in a hallway. I image there was a batch of ambulances at RUH at the same time. We need paramedics on the streets, so people don’t wait for more than two hours – something I saw first hand — for an ambulance. Have people died because they didn’t get prompt attention?

Why can’t eight patients be turned over to two or four paramedics? The hallway people aren’t in dire need of attention if they are lined up outside the ER door. Presumably, those most in need are on the other side of the door. I have walked down the hall at St. Paul’s numerous times and always try not to make eye contact with these patients. It is demeaning enough without having someone gawking at you. The government brags whenever our population hits another milestone, like when we hit the 1.2 million mark not too long ago. (We are now at 1,239,865 apparently.) We simply don’t have enough hospital beds – and staff — to accommodate our growing and aging population. But we do have is a lot of paramedics in a hospital hallway when they could be serving the public.

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One of the NDP promises in the provincial election campaign was to post a list of doctors and nurse practitioners taking new patients. The list would be short.

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It has been reported that there are 200,000 people, including me, in Saskatchewan without a family doctor. British Columbia reportedly has 220,000, and Toronto has 500,000. If those numbers are accurate, on a per capita basis, things are pretty grim here.

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In September, the Toronto Blue Jays held a Grateful Dead Day as a tribute to the 1960’s California band which had a cult-like following. What does this have to do with the Blue Jays? My guess is that fans were grateful when the Jays’ dismal season was pronounced dead. It would be much cooler to have a Trooper Day.

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Donald Trump came up with a doozy of a story after he landed at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. At his rally, Trump talked for 12 minutes about Palmer, who Trump rightfully called “one of the greatest golfers in the world.” That was before Palmer died, of course. Trump went farther. “When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable,’” Trump said with a laugh. “I had to say. We have women that are highly sophisticated here, but they used to look at Arnold as a man.” Palmer must have had big hands. This reminds me of a story from the late 1960s or early 1970s, when Palmer and his wife, Winnie, were on Johnny Carson’s show. “Do you have any rituals or superstitions that you follow when Arnie enters a tournament?” Carson asked. “I kiss his (golf) balls for luck,” Winnie replied. “Well that must make his putter stand up,” Carson said. The laughter went on and on, much to the chagrin of the Palmers.

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Plato, a philosopher during the 5th century BCE, predicted that all democracies would end in tyranny. Mass anger would overpower wisdom and a populist autocrat would inevitably dominate the people. Sound familiar? (Note: it’s cool that a planet was named after him.) *****

 In 1956, Harper Lee’s friends gave her a full year’s salary for Christmas, so she could take a year off from work to write. Lee used that time to write To Kill A Mockingbird and sold more than 40 million copies. I got an hour to compile this column before washing lettuce. ***** Of the nearly 200 countries in the world, only 22 have never experienced a British Invasion. In the United States, the Beatles led the charge in 1964.

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If you count the number of seconds between a flash of lightning and the sound of thunder, then divide by five, that’s how many miles away you are from the lightning strike. If it is one second or less, you have a problem.

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Nick Cannon, a 44-year-old comedian, actor, rapper and host of the Masked Singer, has been the butt of jokes about having 12 children with six women. I read that one man can produce enough sperm to theoretically impregnate every fertile woman on the planet in two weeks or so — google it. Cannon might be up for the job.

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William Shakespeare invented the word vomit. The Bard seemed more like a barf guy to me. *****

That’s it. I hope to do better next month.

-Cam Hutchinson