10 The Michigan Daily i-- eekend, etc. Magazine - rsday, December 2,1999 0 0 9 0 0 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 WIr W Et-C0 M E S Shawn Colvin Arlo Guthrie Great Big Sea. Beth Nielsen Chapman Hot Club ol Cowtown Anne Hills Fred Faglesmith.David Barrett Matt Watroba & Robert Jones Spousored by;..,7 Join Mi anStudent-ALOte Sosponsored by M-PACT D _eer Adviso Creaing_ ru t) I, - - Fo r tke.** Frid 10: r : _ Y . A f $ SP _e ( r +. mv~Lva 2' l# h tRK -D~l Commfunity of Businesse A% a 18A0SOt READ THE MICHIGAN DAILY. You ALREADY MAY BE OUR NEXT WINNER* U5' gan I, the .x°,' - ib :%,r r z. : Y a and G~ivcys Mic igan Lleart rn ieucl and the Student Alumni CounciI .rMwnri