The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 47

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1998 The Palm Beach Post SECTION INSIDE ACCENT DIGITAL Dl A Canadian company is creating a 'digital Princess Diana' who will star in a new movie in which she survives her car crash and saves the world. STYLE Gray's not the only color in town this season. White is also popular, and both can be worn anywhere, anytime. PAGE 3D Palm Beach County Living .1 HIWI mi iu Jim THE GIFT OF C3 RG- rv JiX JE 3 'With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in From Lincoln's second inaugural address Emily J. Minor Real Life Managed care manages to make our blood boil We are driving away from the medical laboratory over on 45th Street and I am explaining to a 7-year-old why his mother just behaved like a raving lunatic.

Indeed, I am trying to figure it out myself. Why did I glare so at the woman in the little white coat and, teeth clenched, spit out the order: Give me my paperwork now. I don't believe I even said please, even though it wasn't her fault my doctor's office hadn't given her the right information to do the blood work they'd ordered. So now, here we are, this kid and navigating our way home in the pouring rain, and I am giving The Talk. The one about being a good listener and doing what you know is right in your heart.

The one about treating other people the way you want to be treated. Parents might as well give this talk to a tree, any one will do, and I realize this (again) when he gives me that vacant second-grader stare and says, "Can we have McDonald's tonight?" And I nearly pull over and start bawling because, see, I'm angry. I'm angry about health care. I'm angry about doctors. I'm angry about the busy signal I get when I call them.

Everybody's cranky I'm mad because it takes forever to get an appointment. I'm mad because the first question anyone asks is not what hurts but. By Paul Reid Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Forgiveness. It is a word used and abused, offered as a balm for bad times, often hand in hand with words like understanding, truth, weakness, pardon, redemption, faith. Sin.

Forgiveness is a hot word right now. The question is, is it the right word? What is forgiveness? Who forgives, and why, and when? We fancy ourselves a forgiving nation and perhaps are. The Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe at great cost to Americans, Americans who had already saved Europe at great cost. We were generous. But was our self-interest better served by the Marshall Plan than by vengeance? Retribution was exacted after World War I.

The result was Hitler and World War II. Was the Marshall Plan even a form of forgiveness? We certainly didn't forgive Nazi war criminals. We hanged them. America rebuilt Japan after WWII, but we certainly never forgave Japan for Pearl Harbor. We hanged their war criminals, too.

There are many U.S. veterans who would be stunned if told that some in Japan had forgiven us for Hiroshima. Repentance must precede forgiveness, and many veterans say they have nothing to repent. So maybe the Marshall Plan and Gen. Douglas MacArthur's stewardship of post-war Japan were more generous and astute acts of international politics than of forgiveness.

That's because politics and forgiveness don't work together, says the Rev. William Martin, pastor at Indiantown Baptist Church. "There is always an agenda in politics," he says. "True forgiveness must be pure, un- 'Lord, help us to turn -from callousness to sensitivity, from hostility to love, from pettiness to purpose From a Yom Kippur prayer by Boca Raton Rabbi Jack Riemer, quoted by President Clinton "What kind of insurance do you have?" I'm mad because the women back at the medical lab on 45th Street just behaved as Forgive, 0 Lord, my little jokes on thee And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me Robert Frost And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. The Lord's Prayer, Bible, King James version poorly as did.

Kude, tired and humorless. This is what Dr. Jana Rasmussen, a West Palm Beach plastic surgeon and president of the Palm Beach County Medical Society, has to say about all this. Everybody's cranky. She explains it like this: Doctors today don't feel in charge.

They have to call managed care companies for permission on stuff that used to be every 'Only the brave know how to Lawrence Sterne, 1760 Please see FORGIVENESS4) Ml DONNA RICE'S REDEMPTION I decided make the pain count for sometliing' Democratic senator from Colorado out of the 1988 presidential race. Donna Rice gained worldwide notoriety almost instantly. Obscurity has been harder to achieve. After an unfortunate experience modeling "No Excuses" jeans, the aspiring actress altered the course of her life changing careers, turning down TV talk shows and million-dollar book deals, and "returning to faith to seek God's guidance." Please see D0NNA4Z) By Bob Dart Palm Beach Post Washington Bureau WASHINGTON Before Monica, there was Donna. The explosive mixture of politics and sex and scandal and media is a familiar story in the nation's capital, and not one that Donna Rice Hughes is eager to rehash.

More than a decade has passed since the tabloids ran a picture of her sitting on Gary Hart's lap on the yacht "Monkey Business," and the ensuing uproar forced the married day, run-of-the-mill. Rasmussen says getting through to those companies is even worse than dialing a doctor's office. (Sure.) In addition, some studies say that if doctors spend more than seven minutes seven minutes! with each patient, they'll lose money, Rasmussen says. Now I don't know about you, but by the time I get in to see the doctor, I've got seven minutes of complaining to do about how I couldn't find their office before I even get to what ails me. Rasmussen says we're all at fault.

The doctors. Their staff. The lab folks. Everybody. Even me and you.

"We have to deal with these managed care carriers and their rules and their denials," says Rasmussen. "So our staff is angry and upset. Then you have all the people in the labs. And then you have the angry patients." Changing the law She calls it a nasty "cycle of angryism" and assures me it won't get any better until we pressure our Florida legislators to change the laws on health care. After watching what happened to Hillary, I am not holding my breath.

All I know is the minute I call a doctor's office and I get the least little bit of a run-around, I turn on the attitude. I'm nasty. I'm forceful. I'm tired and put-out. So are they.

And I'm not sure who started it first, but that is not the point. Point is, nobody's treating anybody the way we'd all like to be treated. Time for The Talk. We all need to be nice. We all need to be patient We all need to smile and exchange names.

And, no, we're not stopping at McDonald's for dinner. In 1988, when Donna Rice Hughes was just Donna Rice (far left), her affair with married presidential candidate Gary Hart destroyed his candidacy. Today, Hughes, (left), works for Enough Is Enough, a group that fights pornography. MitcMQPIMM. I i- It's ft rttf! mmm 1 1 1 He's gay, she's not; a perfect match for a fine sitcom 4D More reviews Debra Messing and Eric McCormack star in the new NBC sitcom Will Grace.

Witty and engaging, it's the best show among the network's new offenngs. By Kevin D. Thompson Palm Beach Post Television Writer Meet Will and Grace, TVs perfect couple. I le's handsome. She's beautiful.

He plays poker, so does she. She loves ER. lie loves George Clooncy. George Clooney? Oh, yeah, there's one nagging problem. He's gay, she's straight.

Welcome to Will Grace, NBC's sharp-as-a-blade sitcom about gay Will (Tun nies' Eric McCormack) and straight Grace iXed Storey's Debra Messing) who share a Manhattan apartment and a lot of heartache after ending long-term relationships. (Will recently broke up with his boyfriend and Grace dumps her fiance at the aliar in the pilot.) Si. KlUn lives. homosexuality for 20 years. He's not exploring that awkward territory for the first time.

"The process of self-discovery and the pain most gay men go through is fascinating." says McCormack. who has played several gay characters before, "but the average American is put off by it." But the producers are quick to note that Will Grace was in development long before the Ellen controversy emerged. In fact Kohan and his partner Max Mutchnick pitched Will Grace as an encmhle comedy about a group of couples in various stages of their relationships. Will and Grace were only one of those couples. But 1 ruav see i CRAcr; What's newuii Today: 9:30 p.m.

Watch on: WPTV-Channel 5 The mrJict: A gay man and a strait woman share an aoatment ard a lot of beHy laughs in tNs rarof-sria-p You remember Ellen, don't you? That often funny, but in the end tiresome comedy in which star Ellen l)e-Generes turned her character's lesbian lifestyle into an off-putting crusade. Despite the criticism ABC received for Ellen's historic coming-out episode, there's no question that show made it easier for Will Grace to make it on the air. "Although Ellen was a very, very-different premise, it was a traiblazer." admits David Kohan. Will Grace's co-creator and executive producer. Will Grace has a bettor shot at succeeding where Ellen failed, however, because Will has known about his mi.

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