10 The Michigan Daily i-- eekend, etc. Magazine - rsday, December 2,1999
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The MichiganQ i-'Weekend, et
BANDS
Continued from Page 56
"There's so much good talent that's
not recognized. You have to have
money," Ramadan said. Lott added that
in such a commercial industry astoday's
music business, there are "a lot of
unsung heroes" that can only be discov-
ered with support of events such as this
tour.
Pianist Ben Yonas of Bambu, who
organized the concert with Messenger
Records by contacting he mix of local
bands and lending mst of his eF.ip
ment to the musicians, said that the
University does not help much in terms
of supporting live music.
"The U frowns upon any events such
as this because they think (companies)
will try to set profits off students." said
Yonas. "But the reason for the event is
self-promotion, to help local music'
Yonas added that the U. as well as Ann
Arbor, is "strugg in for venues espe-
cially for the non-jazz genrs.
"You can't learn the music industry in
school," said the School of Music and
Economics senior, voicing complaints
on the lack of opportunities the U pro-
vides. "The U-Club has horrble
acoustics, but it's the only place we
could have the concer Also, the lack of
a bar thing is also s ,pid' < Yonas said of
the policies on alcohol in Universaty
buildings after 8 p, suggestingit
would be a much better atmosphere if
students of age could get a drnk or two
while listening to the bands.
Cowal also added that college towns
seem to like listening to "anything you
can drink beer to," saying that Ann
Arbor also seems to be a bit mor laid
back in terms of musical tastes than
Detroit, where he's used to playing.
Unger said the atmosphere has varied
throughout the different campuses,
ranging from 1500 people on Friday
night shows to 40 people on nights like
the one in the U-club.
"It all balances out, though," Unger
said, providing another perspective.
"When people are drunk and trying to
get laid, they can't really focus on what
we're handing out or saving," he said,
noting the main focus of the tour is to
get out there and communicate with
bands and students about self-promo-
tion.
Messenger Records has also released
a compilation album in conjunction
vth the tour titled "Wouldn't It Be
BeautiftiF' The simple, honest lyrics
and music of Adam Elk's track, "No
One Gii es a Damn (About Your Bandy"
is not only the tour motto, but can be
said 2o be characteristic of the compila-
tion album itself A no-frills variety of
music. from jazzihip-hop fusion to the
occasional whining and spouting beats
of rock and pop to the crooning of folk
yics, pOtic or cr-ptic, the compilation
album serves as an appr17ate-
ment to the tour
Vrety is the goal with no single
track framed for destiry as a hit. Chris
Whitlev. whose Messenger album sold
more copies than his Sony album. also
contributed a live recording from the
Knitting Factory in NYC. The album
opens with an intro from Timothy
"Sp-e-d.- Levitch, blu-ing out sarcasm
tingled with food for thought, such as"1
just want to be the grandeur of all omni-
scient uselessness in this society gone
read with constructiveness." -
Gathered from the response at the U-
Club the Sunday evening before
Thanksgiving break, U students as both
musicians and audience members seem
to think that the "No One Gives a Damn
About Your Band" tour and its message
is anything but "useless.'
Deaths Linked to Medical Errors
tMovies of the Decade - #2
Stephen King's story finds 'Redemption'
Washington Post
As many as 98,000 Americans die
unnecessarily every year from medical
mistakes made by physicians, pharma-
cists and other health care professionals,
according to an independent report
released vesterday that calls for a major
oerhaul of how the uation addresses
medical error s
More Americans die from medical
mistakes than from breast cancer. high-
w3y accidents or AIDS, according to the
report from the Institute of Medicine, an
arm of the N ,ti)nl Academy of
Sciences. That costs the nation almost 59
billion a year, the congressionally char-
erdresearch group concluded.
Yet while other areas of the U.S. econ-
omv have coordinated safety pmgrms
that collect and analyze accident trends,
including those that track nuclear reactor
accides, higha crashes and aidine
disasters, there is no centralized system
for keeping _,±bs On eia errors and
using that information to prevent fiuue
If such a system were put in place, the
report predicts. the number of deaths
,r'm medical mistakes could be cut in
half within five years.
"These stunningv high rates of med-
ical errors, resulting in deaths, perma-
nent disability and unnecessary suffer-
ing, are simply unacceptable in a med-
ical system that promises first to 'do no
harm-:" said William C. RichardsMn,-
psident of the W.K. Kellogg
foundation and chairman of the expert
committee that compiled the blunt, 223-
page report.
Several medical and public policy
organizations have addressed the issue of
medical errors since the widely reported
deah of Boston Globe health columnist
Betsy Lehman, who died from a
chemotherapy overdose in 1995. But
experts said the prestige of the National
Academy of Sciences, and in particular its
specific proposal to create a federal office
to oversee medical accident trends and
devise strategies for prevention, could
spur real change.
"There's not a controversy here;' said
David Eddy, a senior adviser to the
Pasadena-based health maintenance orga-
nization Kaiser Permanente Southern
California and an expert in evidence-
based medicine. "It's an ideal opportunat v
to incease quality and decrease costs."
Medical errors can range from a sim-
ple miscommiunication about a drug's
name during a telephone call between a
doctor and a nurse to the ermneous pro-
gramming of a complex medical device
at the end of a busy hospital night shift.
They include wrong diagnoses from
mislabeled blood tubes, mistaken treat-
ments because of poorly labeled drugs,
improper dosing because of faulty calcu-
lations and a simple lack of communica-
tion as a patient gets passed from one
pro ider to the next.
To address the wide range of pro-W
lems, the report calls for mandatorv fed-
eral reporting requirements for serious
medical accidents. And it calls upon
Congress to create and fund a national
patient safety center within the
Department of Health and Human
Sen ices, which would be charged with
devekoping better systems for tracking
and presenting patient injuries.
The report also suggest that minor
medical errors that have not resulted in
serious injuries or death be collected in a
confidential database, not available for
public review. The hope is that by reduc-
ing health care provider's gal exposure
and the risk of lawsuits, doctors, hospi-
tals and others may be mom open about
their errors, and thus give the nation a
chance to learn from their mistakes.
"Safety is a cultural matter, and unless
you create a cultural environment in
which it becomes safe to talk about erors
and near misses, you can't get to work on
the root causes of error" said Donald M.
Berwick, a Harvard professor of health
care policy and president of the Institute
for Healthcare Improvement, a not-for-
profit educational and research organiza-
tion, who was one of 19 experts who
worked on the report.
"You can't use fear or blaming of indi-
viduals as a foundation for safety
improvement," Berwick said. "We want
to set up an environment where more
errors will be revealed:'
The report concludes that most errors
are not the result of flagrant recklessness
but occur because of the cumulative
opportunities for human error that arise
in today's complex medical system.
Most are medication errors, BeTick
said. "People can get the wrong drug or
the wrong dose, or they get it at the
wrong time or it's gixen to the "Tong
Part of the problem is har many new
drugs have similarnames.,which are eas-
ily confused when orders are gnien by
voice or are handwritten.
"Physician handwriting has traditional-
1y not been something that has been
looked upon highly by calligraphers:'
said Peter Honig, depuiw director of the
Food and Dug Adminis ains offlccof
post-ark-eling drug n.sk assessmlent, the c
fede= a unit responsible ftracingme-
icatic'n erTors.
Within the past year. Honig said, the
FDA has created a "medical errors
group" with the explicit job of prevent-
ing medication errors. The team reviws
new package designs and propose
names for new drugs to make sure they
are not too similar to existing ones. In
some cases, companies are also addrss-
ing the problem, Honig said. Recent ads
mn medical journals from the makers of
the arthutis drg Ceebtx, for exarpe,
wah doctors not to confuse their pod-
uct with the anti-seizure drug Cerebyx or
the antidepressant Celxa
Most serious mistakes occur in busyt
settings such as emergency rooffs and
intensive care units, according to the
report. In some cases they occur bcuse
medicines are kept in stock at concentra-
tions known to be toxic, wtien they prob
ably should be stored in the diluted forms
in which they are intended to be given.
By Laura Flyer
Daily Arts Writer
"These walls are funny. First you
hate them. Then you get used to
them. After time passes, you get so's
you depend on them." You can almost
see the actor who spends these thun-
derous yet ndulgently simple phras-
es without even knowing for certain.
Who else but Morgan Freeman,
here taking on the role of Red, the
exemplary inmate of Shawshank
prisqa. Red only grows wiser as the
time sweeps by through his inter-
minable stay in jail. Forty years
locked up can, as he learns, turn the
walls into an addictive drug where
coming "clean" seems frightening
and, in some cases, unbearable.
That is the cetra tension in direc-
tor Frank Darab,._tIs mon rg 1994
film. "The Shawshank Redemption."
Ellis Redding (Freeman), nicknamed
"Red" b, hisfellow inmates "maybe
because -m irish," narrates the film.
Freeman places his part to some
degree in the background of a more
auspicious character, Andy Dufresne
(Tim Robbins). Andy comes to rep-
resent the stitch of hope Red can
cling to when his im.pending "fear"
becomes an inev itability.
"The Shawshank Redemption" is
soaked in sentimentality and self-
righteous characters, but that's
acceptable, even enjoyable, as the
film progresses. In fact, the viewer
follows the same internal crisis
Freeman points out: We reject the
overdone heroism, then we start to
forget about it, until finally we
become so engaged in the action that
we pray the film brings innocence
and unusurpable morality to new
heights.
Receiving the bulk of our cheers is
the former vice-president of a large
Portland, Maine bank, Andy
Dufresne, who is wrongly convicted
of having murdered his wife and her
lover. He actually wanted to kill her,
but refrained at the last moment. His
weakness of character here is forgiv-
able, only because we learn that it is
a very brief lapse of judgment on his
part. He is sent to Shawshank with
two consecutive life sentences under
hsbelt.
Andy refuses to mope around his
cel and let his soul harden in jail.
instead, he progresses through vari-
ous stages of projects, from recon-
structing the prison library to usgin
his business expertise to advise and
wardn.Fnall,iof course , beause
what prison m ovie would be com-
pleesihout it,.hedevises a plan to
Tim Run del a avss peltbmanse as Andy Dufresne, a banker wrongly accused of killing his wife, in "The Sh
escape.
More than just any old hardwork-
ing do-it-yourselfer. Andy becomes a
messianic icon in the prison, which
is, as Red ruefully smirks, "full of
innocents." His profound yet inno-
cent nature makes him stand out
from the rest of the louses, and even
the non-louses, the ones who really
are good people.
Red's strategy for keeping occu-
pied in Shawshank is to obtain what-
ever "black market" items the
inmates desire, even the Rita
Heyworth poster requested by Andy.
He's proud of his gopher job and of
the revered reputation it has built up
for him over the years as a result. He
says himself, "Yes sir, I'm a regular
Sears & Roebuck."
Both Robbins and Freeman give
nearly infallible performances in
"The Shawshank Redemption." Their
dialogue may reek of statements that
make that of Moses to his people.
seem unassuming, but it's all part of
the pseudo-grandeur in this film, a
grandeur wins us over inexorably.
Besides, the actors and director are
so spellbinding here they rarely
remind us of it anyway.
Certain moments in
undeniably touching, pa
few instances Andy
caught for disobedient
quixotic hero for being
does nothing for himi
seems ludicrous in a p
people routinely have 1
misfortune and disco,
Andy gives financial
menacing guard, he asks
beers for his buddies. N
himself drinks any of it
gave up drinking aft
I
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