Monthly Archives: January 2010
Ain’t it the truth? Ain’t it the truth?
Some SOTU musings
President Obama threw in the domestic kitchen sink last evening during his first State of the Union address.
Politicians, especially first term presidents, tend to do that. Of course, Obama had a lot to cover. The nation’s average unemployment rate being in double digits alone could have taken half of the ground Obama marched over during his 70-minute speech.
As a State of the Union speech goes, it was very good. Obama was not Barack the law professor. Instead, he was Barack the populist president.
Of course, the cable media had to stir up a controversy where there really had not been one. I’m speaking of the president’s rebuke of the Supreme Court ruling allowing corporations and unions to spend unlimited dollars on political campaigns. Some members of the high court were sitting near the president and during what was a polite but forceful dart, Justice Samuel Alito silently mouthed something like “not true.” It’s not like Alito told the president “f**k you.” Or he didn’t yell out: “You lie” as Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., did during Obama’s address on health care reform last year during a joint session of Congress.
Obama covered a lot of ground, including his belief that now is the time to scrap “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and allow gays to openly serve in the military. The cameras on the Joint Chiefs of Staff showed its members in a grim state. But the president was right on this one.
The argument against gays “telling” in the service is about 9/10ths political and 1/10th religious. Which, if you really take the macro look at it, it’s either 100 percent political or 100 percent religious. This is because the political argument is mostly fueled by the religious right, who in turn, pressure the politicians.
One example against gays in the military used 30 years ago when I was in the service was that the enemy could possibly capture a gay service member and blackmail him to reveal classified material by using the service person’s homosexuality against him. (I use “him” because the “hims” were mostly those in such situations. Today, there are plenty of “hers” serving in dangerous and sensitive military positions.) If the military person was openly gay, such blackmail attempts would mostly prove moot.
What many soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and coasties — some women but I think mostly men — would be most concerned with if they are not for open “gayness” in the service might perhaps being hit on by someone of their own gender. You might ask one of these brave souls and they’d tell you “no way.” But until these mostly young males and even some females make peace with themselves about their own sexuality, being a straight who is hit on by a gay can be disconcerting, and for some might rarely spark violence. But the same could probably be said about some straight guy hitting on your girlfriend.
The bottom line is if gays are openly admitted in the service and you are upset at having a pass made at you, you can file the same complaints with superiors as when an unwelcome pass by someone of the opposite sex is made. And yes, sometimes it is difficult to see justice done with that. Nonetheless, fair is fair. Plus we don’t have a military draft and we need people, especially intelligent and talented people — gay or straight — to provide for our national security.
I liked, as well, how the president basically told both parties they act like jackasses, and that his own party needs to grow a (some) pair (s).
I did dislike one of the president’s proposals. That was his proposed government spending freeze beginning in FY 2011. Previous limited budget increases for government agencies have contributed to poor equipment and half-ass training. If the government doesn’t have time or a little extra money to update outmoded equipment and fully train their employees, it will lead to both a total breakdown in services as well as costing more in the end when people or things fail to work as they should.
Think about that one, Mr. Prez.
All in all, I think the President did a fine job on, at least my opinion for now, what I hope to be many more SOTU addresses over the next three-to-seven years.
iNeedahealthysnack
Maybe I’m just too far out of the techno generation to grasp the importance of today’s announcement by Apple, during which CEO Steve Jobs unveiled their new tablet computer. I mean, I own a laptop and use it extensively. I have a cell that can take pictures, video, respond to voice commands such as “roll over and play dead.” I have a desktop in storage. I got your digital camera. Just last week I was given an electronic device that measures my blood sugar. Also, my work computer is a tablet-style which would provide me tons of pleasure if only I could blow it to Kingdom Come with a Smith and Wesson .500 Magnum.
Surely a .50-caliber revolver promised as a “hunting handgun for any game walking” could take care of that screwed up Fujitsu tablet PC I have to use that often acts as if it is on a continual fortified wine bender.
I even started out using Apple’s Macs.
But I don’t have an iPod. Maybe that’s why I don’t get the significance of the iPad.
I do understand what the new tablet does and it’s relatively cheap price starting at $499 instead of the expected $1,000. It apparently combines the technology and operation of Apple’s iPod, computers, e-book readers and cell phones. Smart, functional, relatively inexpensive and delivered by a genius of a man who survived liver cancer after getting a transplant. It’s a hell of a story, no doubt.
What it isn’t, is the Second Coming of the Almighty. The headline on Huffington Post this afternoon took up half of my laptop screen.
Maybe my lack of enthusiasm stems from becoming computer literate only in my 30s and 40s. Or, as I said, maybe it’s because I don’t have an iPod. Some pundits remarked that they believed the iPad announcement would overshadow President Obama’s first State of the Union address this evening. Go figure that one.
Now if someone came up with a computer that was really functional it would be a different story. I’m talking an android-in-a-box. A computer that would make meals or snacks for you that were both delicious and perfectly healthy according to your dietary and taste bud needs. If it mixed your adult beverages just to your specifications. If it was a computer that could pull up the five-shot .500-magnum and do a Dirty Harry imitation in the event unwelcome intruders were in your abode. If a computer was introduced that was just completely out of this world in its functions, would heal the sick, feed the starving, stop global warming and save the whales, then yeah, 72-point headlines and perhaps an extra edition if newspapers are still around.
But the iPad, the little-bitty tablet PC that mystery and hype has even me talking about it, I just don’t understand the hub, Bub.
A Kubler-Ross moment with myself
Do you remember the song “Dem Bones?”
It is an old spiritual allegedly used to teach children basic anatomy even though the song is anatomically incorrect, all according to Wikipedia. Though there is no doubt of the connection between the song and the verse from “Ezekiel 37:1–14″ where the profit pays a visit to the Valley of Dry Bones and through God’s command causes the bones to come alive.
Anatomically correct or not, the song in its simple way speaks to the connection and oneness of the human body. The body is such an intricate mechanism, like in many ways a fine automobile or space ship or aircraft. Often when one part of the body has a problem it can cause a glitch in another location that even sometimes seems silly to the mind not trained in at least a bit of gross anatomy.
Physicians are trained in more than a bit of gross anatomy and they know, or should know, much more than the rest of the population of these intricate interrelationships within the body which can cause something somewhere to go wrong and make a body miserable elsewhere.
I known my physicians, who work for the Department of Veterans Affairs, know all that. However, I don’t know if they are too hurried or harried or caught up in some kind of mindset that so often find themselves unable to see the forest of the body for the tree trunks.
As I mentioned here last week after my MRI at the Houston VA, three different possible causes emerged for the painful peripheral neuropathy I have suffered in my feet and legs since the summer. One reason is Type II diabetes, which was promptly diagnosed after a lot of talk about it. Another reason was a type of fatty tissue causing stenosis of my lumbar spine and the other reason being an untreatable and possibly debilitating inflammation of one of the spine’s membranes.
So which condition does my specialist pick on which to focus? Why diabetes, of course. And I’ll be brutally frank, if the VA wants me to be treated for diabetes, they sure are picking a funny way to do it. Here is this glucometer and an instruction book. Good luck with your diabetes. Oh, we will fit you with some special shoes, but we can’t mail them to you. You’ll have to come back to Houston for them. No instruction on the diet and lifestyle that is needed to lose weight and pills to help combat the high blood sugar levels. That is the VA’s other answer for all that ails you: meds.
I find myself in a vicious medical circle in which none of my medical professionals have seemed to figure a way out for me. I ballooned in weight. My blood sugar went up at a marginal rate. I developed peripheral neuropathy — a condition very often caused by diabetes but also caused by perhaps more than 100 other reasons as well — the pain cut down on my walking for exercise to almost nothing. My weight ballooned even more. My blood sugar got higher. In the meantime, a MRI finds other problems not related to diabetes that are causing similar symptoms which include neuropathy. I also suffer from often severe back pain as well as shooting pain in my hip and leg. Oh, and let’s not forget that I developed a hand tremor two years ago. Just a coincidence I guess, huh?
So my specialist in Houston says lose weight and lower your blood sugar. We’ll attack the diabetes. Why? Well, my weight and blood sugar both needs to decrease. But also, diabetes is the easier, or perhaps, the only one of the three that can be treated. Good luck. See you in a month.
I don’t understand why the body can’t be seen as a whole, a system? That’s what it is. It’s true, all I can treat is the diabetes as far as I know. But one of the conditions I have been diagnosed with has similar symptoms as diabetes, including weight gain, and it can potentially paralyze or kill you.
Once again, for however many times, the VA has taken me out into the woods and left me to find my way home by myself. I have, at least for the unforeseeable future or perhaps the rest of my life, chronic pain that can’t be treated. It can’t even be treated by the methadone I take for pain at the opposite end of the spine from this problem. Yet, I have to somehow get up in the morning, work, live, keep going. My body might break down along the way, it might not.
I am not pleading for sympathy. There is no need for it. Like they said in olden times: “It ain’t nothin’ but a thang.” I am, instead, just talking out loud. Pretty loud at that. I am kind of going through what the late Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross described as the “Five Stages of Grief” in her acclaimed book “On Death and Dying.” Those stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, although not all of those stages are reached and not necessarily in any order.
Right now I am in denial and anger over being diagnosed as diabetic. I am angry that, at least my specialist thinks, nothing can done about my most recent chronic pain. I am also depressed. I haven’t reached the bargaining and acceptance stage.
If nothing else, these stages present a way to look at the process of working out a significant problem. If my memory from classes that I took while attaining a minor in sociology — including a course on death and dying — serves me right the whole grief thing works on romantic breakups and various other traumas. It’s funny. The last “romantic” breakup I had a couple of years ago revealed only, perhpas, the acceptance stage and none of the other five. I suppose that could be like the exchange method of dieting, I could exchange two of glee for one of depression.
Leave ‘em laughing. Sorry, I am just talking to myself.
Dat ain’t the Aint’s no mo’
Who Dat?
What more might I really say after the thrilling overtime win the Saints foist upon the Vikings. Well, perhaps Garrett Harley’s 40-yard field goal was a bit thrilling. The Zebras stopping what seemed like every play after the OT began was getting tedious.
I must admit though, a TV shot of where Hartley was and where he would have to kick the ball made me believe that this thing wasn’t going to work. It seemed like he had to boot the thing for miles! I really didn’t want to watch. I didn’t want to but did and I couldn’t even tell it went through because for some reason my reception on the local Fox channel here in Beaumont, Texas, sucks. It probably is the fault of the cable provider, the always helpful Time-Warner.
But the Zebras lifted their hands upward toward the heavens. And the Ain’ts were no longer the Aint’s they had been for the better part of 40-something years. They were the NFC Champions!
Poor Old Man Favre. I really don’t know what to make of that dude. I want to like him but he seems as if he teeters on the edge of macho drama queen. He sure got his a** waxed yesterday. He should have been totally rested after the game considering the number of times that dude got knocked down. But there isn’t too many like him. Many are cold but few are frozen. That is except for Peyton.
Manning just needed the time to figure it all out. That was what that first half was about. And I needed to do my taxes anyway. After I figured out how to get back into the tax program I’ve used for the last four years, it didn’t take long at all and got a decent refund — perhaps in as little as a week — to boot. I was finished by the start of the second half of Colts vs. Jets.
Oh and Sanchez. He had a nice ride as a rookie. Now he has to start playing some NFL-style football. Like I could carry his shoulder pads. Or for any other pro football player for that matter. But everyone can be a Monday-morning quarterback, no matter what time of day it might really be.
Peyton Manning. There is no football player anywhere like him as far as I know. He will be the deciding factor come kickoff for the Super Bowl in a couple of weeks. That is, following an afternoon filled with your standards Super Bowl hype. Yes, I wish Peyton the best but wish Drew Brees the mo’ better.
In the end, I will root for my next door neighbors in Nawlins. They have something to cheer about a long time coming.
It may be a bit too early to celebrate, Republicans
Normally, I’m not a big fan of Politico.
The MSM-ish, all-the-politics-all-the-time Web product once occupied a place on my blogroll when I was using Blogspot. But I tired of their cable news-like approach to political reporting. That approach is basically summed up in one word: drama. If there is no drama, create some. Plus political gossip is found there more often than not. I don’t like that. But that’s just me, the old-time newspaper guy who had to count headlines and paste-up pages in the early days of his career. I’m certain there are those print guys much older, or who started before me, who really are the old-timers. I’m just being half-ass facetious.***
With all that blather I speak of Politico because there is a very good article on it today which cites reasons the Republican Party isn’t as well off as many believe it to be. Politico founder and executive editor Jim VandeHei and writer James Hohmann report that a few unexpected victories, including that most recently of nude model Scott Brown who took the Kennedy Senate seat, have the GOP riding high.
But while some Republicans lick their chops at the prospect at taking over Congress in November, other GOP-ers are saying not so fast.
VandeHei and Hohmann point out that the poll numbers show what everyone including Republicans should know, that the public is not crazy about the Grand Old Party. The speculation mentioned in this article gives the GOP an outside chance at re-taking the Senate and a fatter chance at ruling the House. The article also correctly points that this is January and November will be in November.
Republican leaders say part of their problem is getting their agenda out there. Other party leaders fret that the GOP lacks a brand. Meanwhile, party minority whip Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia wrings his hands over a lack of diversity among candidates.
Other formidable problems also puzzle the GOP elite. The public likes President Barack Obama, for one, and, correctly, feel like he inherited a big financial mess from Gee Dubya Bush. Money, or lack thereof, is perhaps the biggest problem facing Republicans, according to VandeHei and Hohmann. We’re talking campaign cash and not a Washington bailout.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle for the Republicans to overcome is not mentioned in the article, as informative as it is. That is the party has a big case of see no evil, hear no evil, fear no evil.
For instance, the perceived agenda problem. What agenda are they talking about? I suppose if they had an agenda other than being super-obstructionist, then that would be a problem. They have no problem promoting their agenda if it is attacking everything done by the Democrats.
And as for lacking a brand, why the GOP has unfortunately branded themselves already as the Obstructionist-Pig-headed-Bassackwards-Reactionary party. Cantor does see the forest for the trees at least for the diversity problem. But — and perhaps fate is involved here — everything the Republicans do turns to feces. The same can be said of their diversity hire program. I give you exhibit A, Republican party chairman Michael Steele.
The GOP needs money yet they always seem to find some spare change lying around. However, the whole animus towards Republicans today is based on the fact that most folks who are not Republicans and even many Republicans themselves think the party and its leaders — whomever they are — stinks to high heaven.
The Politico article is a great read and will only take up a few minutes of your time. I think whether you are Republican, Democrat or Save the Bluenose Rat partisans you will find something instructive on what the GOP looks like at the moment. If you are a Republican you might come down off your high from winning in Massachusetts a few moments, but that could be a good thing to think about which way your party is headed. If you are a Democrat you might be a bit encouraged, but not too much.
As for as the Independents and Bluenose Rat lovers, well you can take what you will from it. All in all, the piece is one Politico could use more of instead of the gossip and faux drama that too often fills up the site.
***In reality I shouldn’t be so hard on Politico. VandeHei is a longtime journalist who covered the White House and other political matters for The Washington Post as well as other distinguished newspapers. The site is doing something new and I give them a B for effort. But I give them a D for overall content for the reasons to which I alluded.
Traveling the undiscovered country
Whenever one is handed a medical diagnosis such as Type II diabetes — even if one is skeptical of the diagnosis — such a revelation is usually somewhat significant in the medical partition of one’s life. But whenever the doctor says: “But there’s more … ” One says: “Shoot ‘em low sheriff, he’s riding my Shetland pony!” Or something like it.
Yesterday I got more than I bargained for at the primary doc, actually a physician’s assistant, or a “doc-lite” if you will. She went over the MRI results from my test on Tuesday and it wasn’t all that pleasant as medical news goes.
Before the MRI results though, the PA pronounced me as diabetic, as if to answer the question that has floated around my Department of Veterans Affairs caregivers and me: “Am I diabetic or am I just fat?”
So that news involves a whole lifestyle change including diet, exercise (which shall be dicey as you will see) and sticking your self with a pin and testing your blood.
Now, the MRI news. I have suffered from neuropathy for the better part of eight months, perhaps longer. The symptoms have included severe foot pain in both feet including that which feels like someone is sticking a nail in your foot, as well as numbness and just plain hurting feet. Simultaneously, I have also suffered from lower back pain, a sharp pain that shoots down my right butt cheek (It’s those damn Republicans!) and a shooting pain in my right leg when sitting or driving too long.
Diabetes is one of the major causes of neuropathy. There are hundreds of causes it seems. Since the VA often deals in what one might call “quantity medicine,” I was concerned about receiving a diagnosis of diabetes because it was the easiest. I am the most overweight I have ever been in my life. My blood sugar has risen but some doctors have said it was on the cusp of diabetes. Thus, I got a diabetes diagnosis complete with a meter to measure my blood sugar and all the little accessories.
But the MRI found two other possible reasons for my leg and foot pain. For one I have what the PA described as a “tumor” — non-malignant — and as a “fat deposit” that is causing some stenosis, or encroachment, on my lumbar spine.
Secondly, the MRI discovered what is suspected as a relatively rare condition caused “anachroiditis.” This sounds, of course, like something having to do with a spider although that word is “arachnid.”
Anachroiditis is the inflammation of the two innermost layers surrounding the spinal cord and often expands to the nerve roots. This can cause scarring or adhesion of the nerves. The kicker is there is no cure for this condition. So I guess the punter is that it also is progressive and can lead to paralysis and death. It’s difficult enough to look at one the many pages I have been reading on the Internet about my new found rare and incurable malady. This is a disease described as both “dreadful” and “insidious.” To read what I have written is even more a chore.
The causes also are many: Anything from lumbar puncture or chemicals from a spinal injection to trauma to viral or bacterial infections. The possible complications are numerous as well. It doesn’t sound like it is or might be a whole lot of fun.
I still have to see my neurologist at the VA next week and I suppose we might go over the limited treatment options. One, perhaps, might be surgery to remove the mass and continued use of Lyrica which has seemed to help my feet pain somewhat. Surgery for arachnoiditis is almost zero likely since surgical procedures have not been very successful in treating the condition.
I will be the first to tell you my future right now looks scary as I – so my friend Terri Jo put it — “travel the undiscovered country of ill health.” But I will do my best to keep active, keep upbeat, keep moving those limbs, keep upright on the ground and keep on truckin’. And I don’t know what effect, if any my condition will have on my work including freelancing, but I will keep on pounding out this thing — eight feet deep – for better or worse as long as I am able.
So there.
Scott Brown: Pretty boy, father of the year wins in Mass
The news that Republican Scott Brown beat Democrat Martha Coakley last night in the race for the long-held Democratic seat for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts doesn’t upset me.
One has to expect little bumps in the road here and there. Plus, the fact that it was Brown — who once posed nude in Cosmopolitan – as victor makes the story even better. Brown even managed to thoroughly embarrass his two college-age daughters in his acceptance speech by telling the world his girls “were available.” I mean that is just plain wrong! That even disgusts me.
Such comments and Brown’s past has even given right-wing cable freak Glenn Beck the willies. Beck said he didn’t trust Brown and that the new senator’s tenure “could end with a dead intern.”
The reality was Coakley ran her campaign initially as if she was the chosen one, meaning she didn’t do diddley squat. Even if she was running against a corpse for the U.S. Senate she should have been out their campaigning her heart out.
As for all the dire predictions by the pundits and GOP talking heads and cable news constantly jonesing for political conflict, this might not be as big as everyone makes it. It might not stop health care reform. The Democrats still have a majority in Congress and they’d like to have a super majority, but because of Brown they don’t. Congress could pass health care through reconciliation — passing a budget bill in the Senate without fillibuster – or perhaps they could piecemeal it. They may drop it altogether, but I can’t really see that as Obama has so much invested in passing health care reform.
We can talk to our elder war heroes about everyday matters too
This morning I took the shuttle to the VA hospital for my multiple appointments. I don’t know who thought up booking me for three appointments when one of those was a MRI. But it all worked out somehow.
An 84-year-old Marine sat next to me on the ride over. He seemed kind of lonesome, as to be expected, since he lives by himself. His wife died several years ago and his children are scattered around the country. The fellow was, I believe he said, a veteran of Saipan, Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima during World War II. It’s hard to imagine going through and — moreover, living through — one of those battles, much less three.
I know that if he had wanted to talk about those battles he would have. He did mention the unit citations his outfit received during the war and talked about how he would sell the cigarettes that came in his rations to other GIs because he didn’t smoke. We mostly talked about less martial things though. We spoke of gas prices. He said he could remember gas wars during the late 40s with stations selling regular for 19–20 cents per gallon. We both remarked at how strange it is that we have the highest average gas prices in Texas right now when we are surrounded by refineries. We also talked about movies and just common everyday matters.
The funniest thing this old Marine told me was something I had not heard but is evidently true. He said that during a visit several years ago to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum the visitors were informed that the wax figure of President Bill Clinton had its zipper sewn shut. The reason was that every time the museum personnel went by the Clinton figure they would find that someone had passed by the mannequin and unzipped his pants.
Sometimes it is great to hear of the war exploits of our older heroes. Other times it is just as rewarding talking to these fellows and listening to their take on the normal affairs of man — and presidents.
Let’s oust the zealots trying to rewrite history for Texas kids
Had it not been for a girl I might be living somewhere today on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I might also be much prouder of the state I was living in than the one in which I reside today.
Tough words for a Texan to say. For most of my life Mississippi has appeared as a perpetual bottom dweller when it comes to lists concerning education or wealth or this and that. Texas has also made the lower parts of the same lists in more recent times though I have managed to stay proud of the Lone Star State itself, its people and its history.
But it is history — at least United States history which will be taught to future public school students — that makes me hang my head in shame.
You see, we have this bloc of ultra-conservative, fundamentalist religious zealots on our State Board of (Un)Education that is steering all courses in the directions of their beliefs and their beliefs alone. Right now the focus is history. Perhaps tomorrow they will slant all mathematics to the right.
These zealots tried but failed to strike the name of Scopes Monkey Trial attorney Clarence Darrow. They were successful in having language that tries to vindicate that old reprobate Sen. Joe McCarthy. In the new right-wing history in Texas, conservative icons Newt Gingrich and Phyllis Schafly are the important names to remember on history tests on the sections covering the late 20th century.
It is worse than I can describe. High school students who learn the history according to the right-wing nuts on the SBOE or SBOU, will be at a disadvantage when they attend college and learn what the rest of U.S. students have been taught about their past. Those who don’t go on to college will just be cheated out of a decent education because Texas voters were either duped or thought they could legislate the 1950s back into schools which are perceived to be rife with trouble.
Don’t get me wrong. I still love the pine forests of East Texas and the marshes of the upper Texas coast. Likewise, I enjoy driving the Hill Country of Central Texas whenever the highly allergenic ashe juniper (mountain cedar) isn’t pollinating. There is also beauty in the West Texas mountains and North Texas prairies.
There also is no other state, in my mind, with such a fascinating history as that of Texas with its past as a republic and its colonial past which includes Spain and Mexico.
But our elected board running the public schools in Texas is robbing kids of a decent education due to their narrow-minded political and theocratic agenda. We should teach students about the conservative movement and how it has affected politics and the economy just as we should teach the New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Likewise, influential conservatives in history including Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, Ronald Reagan and as much as it pains me to say it, Rush Limbaugh, deserve their place in history texts along with FDR, JFK, Teddy Kennedy, Clinton and Barack Obama.
History can live and thrive under a big tent. And making children educationally backwards serves no great purpose either in improving society, nor toward molding it into one’s shape politically unless you aim for a totalitarian society. So how about it? Let’s get these nuts off the Texas board of education. Let’s teach history, the good and the bad. The kids can handle it and they will be better citizens for it.
Oh, as for the girl whom I moved back to Texas for from Mississippi after the service? Well, that didn’t work out, but that’s all ancient history.
