Author: Dick

During the week I watched a report on CNN about a young Marine who was badly wounded and his face disfigured from a suicide bomb in Iraq. In the process, he also received brain damage, had his left arm blown off as well as some fingers on his right hand.

This report was centered on how the Department of Veterans Affairs had been ridiculous in their responding to his request for disability. That’s kind of a sterile explanation but when I think about how often and how seriously that the VA screws over former soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guard that it kind of makes me somewhat mad.

Despite the title of this rant, I bear no ill will toward CNN and the fact that they had such a large response that they had to stop receiving comments on the story. No, I actually praise CNN for their work on exposing the kind of crap that befalls the nation’s veterans who have the misfortune of having for financial or other reasons to resort to care by the VA.

As I have said in this space before one’s care within the VA system depends on where one goes. But some of their problems at a specific facility or regional office or hospital points to the larger problem that the VA needs to be torn down and rebuilt.

Were I to rank my medical care overall in the VA over the past 16 or so years I have mostly used it as my primary health providers, I would have to give them a weak “C” for their medical abilities. This is only my point of view. The VA did save my brother’s life by providing a routine check-up which found through X-ray that he had lung cancer. Part of one of his lungs were removed several years ago and his follow-ups have thankfully been free of malignancy.

But as we know, a medical system is not merely doctors and what they do or cannot do. It also includes the administrative aspect which can sometimes be more painful than some of the dealings with the health care itself. My contention includes the long waits for specialists, when one sees a specialist it will likely be an intern or physician’s assistant and the most maddening of all to me, their incompetent financial administration.

Recent investigative reports by both CNN and CBS are not really news to those who have felt the overwhelming frustration of those veterans who have had to deal with a VA medical system that often makes one feel they are in a house of insanity. But I nonetheless am glad to see some of the media exposing just how bad the VA is. Perhaps it might someday lead to improvements. Of course, being an original founder of the Pessimist Club (motto: We would meet but we are afraid no one would show up) I don’t see any hope in immediate sight. But one can hope, wish, write letters to their elected officials and organize big protests outside our nation’s VA hospitals DEMANDING that better care be given the nation’s veterans. I know, needless to say although I will, that the VA will spin any answers they have to give to those who attempt to make them accountable. But I think most of the public can see through their snake oil sales. That is, except this one guy I know. I mean, he would buy beans from you if he thought it might grow a vine shooting into the sky and leading to …

There’s hope yet for those of us who have reached their fifth decade. That hope is Mike Flynt, who at 59 is playing linebacker for Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas.

Flynt, who has to be in some kind of incredible shape, was kicked off his college team 37 years ago and after talking with a friend at a class reunion figured out that he still had a year of eligibility.

His 82-year-old mother got to see him play recently. She plays forward for a minor-league hockey team in Omaha. No, not really. Can’t you tell when I am kidding? What’s the matter with you? Anyhow?

A colleague from out of town visited me yesterday. She and I both work for the same government bureau although she is a full-time employee based at our regional office and I work part-time for the agency in the hinterlands. I have been trying to learn a new phase of my job that I just received training for and she came down to help teach me a little more about it. It didn’t dawn on me until her visit that I will have to be using some of the same Internet search tools I have used for years as a newspaper reporter and more recently as a freelance writer. Everyone has their favorites but here is a few of mine:

Black Book Online — It is a portal of numerous databases for everything from aircraft registration and pilot licensing to various other state and local sites from which you can, mostly at least, access for free.

Public Data — It’s not free but is priced at what I consider reasonable. It lets you access a good many state criminal history depositories as well as driver license, voting, license plate and other little nuggets that might otherwise take a little while to find. The cheapest package is 250 searches for $25 a year.

How Far Is It? — That’s a good question and this site, which I suppose advertises something Indonesian (I’ve always been in too much of a hurry to check out the top half of the page), can help you determine the answer via as-the-crow-flies distances of many different locales.

Real Estate Records — “Black Book Online” has links to many state real estate records but many localities have their own sites on which you may search by street or name to find a property along with its appraisal value and other good tidbits of info. The title of this paragraph is our local appraisal district’s site.

Of course there are tons and tons of such sites and most government agencies have databases on everything under the sun and probably within a 1,000 light years from it. Some might even be user friendly. Happy hunting.

A study by U.S. Army psychiatrists has found that 20 percent of active duty soldiers in Iraq and 42 percent of National Guard and reserves who served there are suffering from mental health problems. The report confirms earlier studies that soldiers in droves were coming home from Iraq with PTSD and other mental problems.

This is troubling especially in light of a investigation CBS News that a suicide “epidemic” was taking place among veterans, especially those returning from Iraq.

Not surprising, the Department of Veterans Affairs told CBS that “ongoing” work is being done on a study of veterans who kill themselves. The VA didn’t have that kind of data, according to a top VA official. CBS reporters had to get their numbers from the 50 individual states.

Maybe the VA will one day conclude their so-called ongoing study then perhaps they might make a dent in preventing vet suicides. But if you are waiting for the VA to save the life of a loved one, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Today I listened for a short while on my truck radio to shows of both Rush Limberger and Glen Beck. As always, I couldn’t listen for very long because my boiling blood might set off a spontaneous combustion inside me and that wouldn’t be very pleasant. Nor would it be very spontaneous, come to think about it.

What common theme that was heard coming from the hot air of this pair was not the expected Hillary-bashing although I am sure Hillary’s name was used in some point in the show. The Right-Wing Talk Radio Federation would promptly oust these two if they didn’t invoke the name of a Clinton at least one time in their shows. No, the commonality I heard today came in the form of “taxes,” you heard me right “taxes.”

Lowering taxes, or perhaps even eliminating taxes, is a long-time obsession with Republicans. If you listen to any State of the Union address by a Republican president the loudest cheers and applause comes from Republican congressional members when the nation’s CEO says those magical words “lower taxes.”

Now I have to admit, I don’t like taxes either. However, I don’t spend my time getting all worked up about higher taxes. Even someone like me who makes a relatively shallow income still has to pay them. But the government of the people and supposedly for the people says we have to pay up or go straight to jail, do not pass Go … It’s Uncle Sammy’s version of Monopoly. So we pay taxes.

Things may be changing though. An article called “Republicans Who Love Taxes,” by economist Stephen Moore of the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute — not to be confused with Kato played by Bruce Lee in the “Green Hornet” — points to a trend of Republican governors raising taxes in what Moore portrays as almost a contagious fashion. Moore writes in the piece, probably written in 2003,:

“An analysis by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) notes that with nearly $100 billion in state deficit spending gaps to close this year (New York and California make up about half that shortfall), governors may end up raising taxes by half that amount, making 2003 the biggest tax-hike year ever for the states. And yes, many of the calls for the biggest tax increases are coming from Republicans. In Idaho, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne is seeking a 1.5 cent per dollar hike in the sales tax. In Arkansas, Mike Huckabee is lobbying for a sales tax hike and assorted other fee increases, as are Kenny Guinn of Nevada and Bob Taft of Ohio. One of the most cockeyed tax schemes has been advanced by John Rowland of Connecticut, who has called for a Clintonesque “millionaire income tax surcharge.”

Now whether these people who must be heathens to many in the GOP — perhaps that’s one reason Huckabee hasn’t exactly been on fire in the 2008 Republican presidential nomination race — actually got the taxes they pushed I don’t know. And I don’t care.

And that’s the point.

Addendum-de-dum-dum: I had forgot my U.S. history from college almost 25 years ago. And it must have been a subconscious nudge that made me check out from the library earlier this week “William Howard Taft: The President Who Became Chief Justice,” and was written in 1970 by Bill Severn. I totally forgot that the big guy, Taft, pushed for the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment states:

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

Is that irony or am I just whistling “Dixie?”