Many clubs have rules prohibiting the use of cell phones and BlackBerrys on the golf course, and these days that might be the only way to get away from the seemingly constant barrage of bad news emanating from Wall Street. We have heard too much about the financial crisis — derivatives, the credit freeze, home values, mortgage-backed securities, credit default swaps and on and on. I truly hope that many of my readers are using a round of golf to escape the turmoil and volatility. After all, isn’t this why we join a club or get out to the golf course, to relax with friends or family, get away from the pressures of the job and just take a break from the pace of life as we know it, all too well, in 2008?

Health inequality is a fact of American life. The Eight Americas Study, looking at the whole U.S. population, discovered breathtaking differences in survival. American Indian males on the reservation barely make it into their late 50s, while Asian American women in metropolitan New York average more than 91 years of life expectancy. Trying to fix such health inequality should be a national priority — but it also appears daunting.

Much has been made recently of the sanctity of national borders and problems caused by hordes of illegal immigrants who daily violate this country’s boundaries by sneaking in, mostly under cover of night and usually from Mexico.

If you read Jim Brown’s column in the Herald Tribune — Brown, a longtime backer of Michael Welly and the past management of the Longboat Key Club — you could come to the conclusion that the town might as well surrender to the inevitable and grant the Longboat Key Club their request because of the fear of a potential lawsuit.

This column is called “Staying Alive” for several reasons. One is the idea that knowing a little about applied public health can markedly improve your health. Yet now just knowing the beat of the Bee Gees’ famous song can save many lives — including yours.

There are 34 official USGA Rules, but attached to them are thousands of decisions, definitions, notes, exceptions and appendixes. Even the best players struggle to understand them, hence it isn’t surprising that recreational golfers have misconceptions that are so entrenched you could swear they are true.

It’s still the Clintons
It appears that Hillary Clinton will be our next Secretary of State, that is if husband Bill can pass muster on the famous Obama questionnaire. When he gets to “are there any incidents in your past that might prove embarrassing,” he can simply refer them to several books that have been written about several incidents that some think to be in the embarrassing category.

The Thanksgiving season is upon us, and three dying turkeys have descended upon Washington, seeking to gobble up bailout dollars.

The city of Sarasota is still trying to find a solution to a problem that has faced almost every city in America with a lakefront or riverfront on its perimeter — how to correct the bad planning that cut it off from the downtown in the first place.

Many pundits have announced the American economic collapse is so severe that the next months of political maneuvering will be all about the economy, not health care. Yet health care now represents a sixth of American GDP. You can’t fix the economy without trying to fix health care.