Source: http://terrypress.com/blog/page/3/?ineedthispage=yes
Timestamp: 2019-12-12 21:44:57
Document Index: 343956514

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 5', 'art 4', 'art 3', 'art 2', 'art 2', 'art 1']

Blog | TerryPress.com | Online gateway for writer and radio host Terry Phillips | Page 3
Posted on April 20, 2015 by Terry Phillips
Although I was born in California, my family’s roots are in Turkey. But being ethnically Greek and Armenian, I grew up hearing the word Turk as a curse.
To outsiders, Turks and Greeks and Armenians are virtually indistinguishable from each other. Dark hair, dark eyes, clannish, expressive. They’ve shared similar music and food and art. Engaged in commerce and battle. Over the years, these people have been friends and enemies. Apart from differences of language and religion, they are, to put it bluntly, pretty much like everyone else: human beings.
Posted on April 14, 2015 by Terry Phillips
One of my favorite words is quadrennial. It refers to something that happens every four years. That includes Olympic games, the appearance of February 29th on the calendar and, of course, American presidential elections.
Posted on April 9, 2015 by Terry Phillips
There’s an old Armenian proverb: He who tells the truth must have one foot in the stirrup. That’s because journalism can be a dangerous profession.
Just ask Andrei Babitsky. This Russian-born war correspondent has had his share of troubles for telling the truth. In 1989, he became a reporter for Radio Liberty, the overseas information agency funded by U.S. taxpayers.
Tourian Trial Transcripts – Part 5
Posted on May 12, 2014 by Terry Phillips
In 1934, nine men accused of murdering Armenian Archbishop Ghevont Tourian were put on trial in New York City. On the 80th anniversary of that trial, we begin posting the complete transcripts of that case.
Here is Part Five: pages 1902 to 2214
Tourian Trial Transcripts – Part 4
Here is Part Four: pages 1369 to 1901
Tourian Trial Transcripts – Part 3
Here is Part Three: pages 922 to 1368
Tourian Trial Transcripts – Part 2
Posted on May 11, 2014 by Terry Phillips
Here is Part Two: pages 457 to 921
Tourian trial transcripts – part 2.
Tourian Trial Transcripts – Part 1
Here is Part One: pages 1 to 456.
Fixing that Obamacare glitch: How I did it (and you can too)
Posted on November 1, 2013 by Terry Phillips
It seems almost everyone has an opinion about what’s wrong with the new health insurance marketplace. Rather than participating in that debate, I have found a relatively easy way to overcome at least one of the system’s hidden online barriers — at least here in California.
As soon as Obamacare opened for business, I went to the Covered California website (www.CoveredCA.com), our state’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and set up an account. It was a bit time consuming, but far from the worst such process I have encountered. After about 20 minutes of filling out forms, I had a user name and a password. Unfortunately, that’s when the fun ended and the grumbling began.
While trying to log on with my Google Chrome browser, everything ground to a halt. Then, a friend suggested I switch to Internet Explorer (IE). Bingo! Apparently, this site was designed to operate only with the Microsoft browser.
Being skeptical by nature, I wondered whether this was some deliberate attempt by the software giant to block competitors or merely a mistake. In fact, many governmental and commercial websites require IE. But according to the online statistics tracker W3Counter, only about 25 percent of web surfers use the Microsoft browser. The rest of us rely on something else (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.). That means the vast majority would be unable to shop for health insurance using our normal online access software.
I started calling my high tech friends. There is some disagreement among them as to the reasons for this anomaly. Some say it’s an industry bias toward Microsoft products. Others believe it’s poor testing protocols. But all admit that developers should have designed the health insurance site to work with all browsers.
So, why has no one warned us about this particular hiccup? Although there is some discussion of the topic on a few technically-oriented social media outlets, I have seen no mainstream news agencies reporting this problem. CoveredCalifornia does not announce it is only accessible with a specific application (although one customer service rep told me on the phone that this was, in fact, the case). Since upper-level bureaucrats are generally not tech-savvy people, they are probably unaware of this phenomenon. The folks who might understand it usually don’t talk to non-geeks. To quote a line from the movie, Cool Hand Luke, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
The good news is that this is a temporary problem. While there is still plenty to criticize, the website’s troubles will eventually be corrected. Ask any information technology expert and you’ll hear the same thing: New products almost never function correctly when first released. That’s why, for example, there are so many updates to computers and smartphones. Even such well-established gadgets as automobiles get recalled periodically.
Of course, partisan opponents will continue to attack Obamacare. They have been telling us from the beginning that the government’s health insurance program was destined to fail. While this website is clearly not ready for prime time, overwrought critics won’t make it better by declaring that the sky is falling. It’s time to recognize a few dropping acorns for what they really are – and stop acting like nuts.
-Published in The Bakersfield Californian, Nov. 1, 2013