America In Realization [11.09.14]

US - Hungary Relations

• Viktor Orban Steers Hungary Toward Russia 25 Years After Fall of the Berlin Wall (New York Times)

US - Iran Relations

• Obama Wrote Secret Letter to Iran’s Khamenei (Wall Street Journal)

"Presidential Correspondence With Ayatollah Stresses Shared U.S.-Iranian Interests in Combating Insurgents, Urges Progress on Nuclear Talks"

Government 

• Obama chooses U.S. prosecutor Lynch to be next attorney general (Fox news)

Arts

• What Interstellar Got Right and Wrong About Science (Time)

US Manufacturing

• Cheap natural gas is giving manufacturer Nucor a shot at reversing the long decline in American steelmaking (TIME)

Medicine & Healthcare

• Pilot Sully Sullenberger : Medicine Needs a Higher Authority (Time)

"Quality and safety oversight of the medical field is too fractured, and could benefit from an FAA-like agency
All complex systems are different, but they all abide by similar rules and need a coordinated system of protocols and uniformity to bring into play under situations that can be very different. In medicine there are too many entities that have a hand in quality and safety and whose efforts are not effectively coordinated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lacks the high degree of regulatory authority of an agency like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), so there is no single domestic agency that oversees all of medicine and promotes and mandates agreed upon best practices uniformly. Without a systems approach, medicine is fragmented. Without sufficient widespread implementation of best practices and effective training, medical personnel and government leaders are forced to scramble, making critical decisions and developing protocols in real time to respond to an evolving crisis. With states and hospitals left to their own devices, no one consistent policy emerges, causing gaps in execution. "