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The Admiral and Tennille. If only it were true.

In a call for new nautical leadership, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced he was promoting Daryl Dragon to admiral.

Captain_and_tennille_1976

The “Captain’s” longtime spouse and singing partner Toni Tennile filed for divorce in January. Court documents in the case had allegedly referenced health issues or health insurance issues, according to TMZ. Tennille said on her blog that Dragon suffers from neurological conditions not unlike Parkinson’s disease, which caused his hands to shake so badly he could no longer play piano.

 “Not really ‘full blown PD, or Parkinson’s Disease, but enough of a handicap to stifle (stop) his (keyboard) playing, as well as his typing skills, etc.,” said an update in Toni’s blog.

Oh well. Best of Luck, Admiral Dragon (just joking, he really wasn’t named an admiral, but maybe that would put him in better spirits, or perhaps he could be made captain of a real ship like the USS George H.W. Bush, which is now launching warplanes for sorties in Iraq.) I have shaking hands that I don’t know from what source for sure. I hope it doesn’t affect my typing skills.

As for Toni, keep those big pearly whites polished. It makes listening to “Muskrat Love” all that more appealing. Well, not really. But whatever.

 

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Scientists: Don’t let your cows drink coffee in Australia

Weather getting you down? “Pig’s arse,” an Australian medical study reveals.

Well, the story about these finding doesn’t use such an Aussie expression to disagree. But stories about health and science seem to pop up every day. Such subjects can also easily confound readers. There seems no shortage of the modern news media publishing the “Researchers say … ” type of medical story. You are no doubt familiar with the type of article. Usually some medical journal, the likes of Prostate Quarterly, announces to the media some study was published in said journal that is the definitive word on some bodily function or condition.

When I see these type stories I always think of that George Carlin bit — permit me to plagiarize myself and the late Mr. Carlin — “Researchers have found that saliva causes stomach cancer. But only when swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time.”

Findings by scientists seem forever questioning the  usefulness or safety of common items like coffee or red meat, or maybe both. I can see my lead now: “

Scientists have discovered that cows which drink more than two cups of coffee daily produce meat that is more likely to keep consumers up late at night.”

Now comes a study published in the journal Arthritis Care and Research which shatters perceptions that the pain noted in numerous old wives tails is caused by something other than the weather. The experiment conducted on some 1,000 patients with low back pain in Sydney during 2011-2012 “compared  the weather at the time patients first felt lower back pain with weather conditions one week and one month before the start of pain,” said an article published in Daily Digest News about the study.

No correlation was found between the weather and lower back pain.

Now I have lower back pain pretty much around the clock. The same goes for neck pain, the latter which is likely caused by bone spurs and a blown disc in my cervical spine. Since I have had surgery twice on my C-spine, including fusion, the doctors say they can only operate on it again in case of an emergency threatening life or limbs. So, I take methadone for that pain. But that doesn’t prevent my neck from having spikes in pain. And, I have found these instances of increased pain in times during nearby low pressure weather systems. For instance, I noticed the pain increased considerably during two of the hurricanes I went through.

The doctor who authored the study makes it clear in the news story that more investigation is needed with weather conditions in concert with certain pain caused by problems including osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia.

I might suggest that the researchers also find places outside Sydney for such studies. It seems rather presumptuous, if not foolish, to expect the weather in one part of the world to represent the entire planet. Various conditions control the weather systems of coastal Texas where I live. I would imagine the same could be said for southeastern Australia, although I do remember quite pleasant weather when I visited there some 35 years ago.

I can’t remember weather systems causing pain in Australia but I do remember a bit of a hangover after drinking the local Ouzo and pints of beer one night. Oh, that was Christmas Eve and as I recall, it was a very mild evening.

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This week: Little Virginia college likely to have political representation

Probably most of the remaining world didn’t notice but I missed a few days of writing EFD this week. Most of the reason was medically-related. No, I haven’t been sick. I’ve just been sick of medical appointments.

I finally finished up a month’s worth of physical therapy after having arthroscopic surgery to remove torn meniscus cartilage in my knee. Then I had to see the doctor that did the surgery. That was later followed by a little added work at my job that the doctor has allowed. No, I still am not at 100 percent. All of that with my friends telling me: “Why I was back on the job the week after my knee surgery!” Well, maybe you were and maybe you are Peyton Manning. I don’t care. Each person responds differently to various surgery, even if that surgery is simply removing a torn knee cartilage. Some folks don’t require physical therapy. Some people do. Then there are others who have little success with physical therapy. I am one who fits in that category.

My hope is that I will gradually get stronger and my knee will work better. That’s because I have a lot of other crap that is wrong with me, like diabetes and chronic neck pain and chronic lower back pain. So there!

Due to a bunch of medical appointments this week, I have fallen behind on the news. All of a sudden, John McCain is on TV saying we should bomb Iraq. I thought his thing was bombing Iran? Oh well, Iran, Iraq, they both are only separated by a letter.

Then we’ve had the whole Bergdahl affair. There always must be something to keep the politicians fired up to make life a pisser for the rest of us.

Well, at least Eric Cantor was beat. But wait! That’s bad, Or is kind of bad. Take for instance, Democratic Party head Debbie Wasserman Shultz, went to Iowa ahead of that state’s Republican convention this weekend, to rub in just how bad things are for the GOP since an unknown, under-funded college professor beat the House majority leader in a congressional election earlier this week in Virginia.

 ”  … The Tea Party has taken control of the Republican Party. Period,” Schultz said after the Virginia GOP leader went down. “When Eric Cantor, who time and again has blocked common sense legislation to grow the middle class, can’t earn the Republican nomination, it’s clear the GOP has redefined ‘far right.’ Democrats on the other hand have nominated a mainstream candidate who will proudly represent this district and I look forward to his victory in November.”

Well, let’s just hope whomever it is, the Democrat who is running against whomever it was who beat Cantor, wins in November. One thing for sure, the winner of the congressional election will be a professor from tiny Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., unless Cantor decides to run as a write-in and is elected. Yes, it seems the little-known professor who beat the GOP House Majority Leader will face a Democrat who is also a little-known professor at Randolph-Macon College. At least it should be a great time for the local student newspaper “The Yellow Jacket.” Of course, stranger things have happened. There is nothing like a national news story to let the “big boys” in to kick the local journalists in the teeth.

Oh, Dave Brat is the Republican who beat Cantor. He will face Democrat Jack Trammell. Well if that don’t (sic) beat all.

Actually, I’ve been saying for several years now that the “big tent” is getting ready to fold. That the Republicans will eventually go away, the way of the Whigs. I suppose that would really neither be here nor there, if one takes a look back at he origins and dismantling of the Whigs or the Republican party.

It sounds like politics may have finally taken a historic turn. Or not.

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Bowe Bergdahl: Innocent, guilty? It’s enough to make one’s feet hurt.

What is good today? My feet are doing well. They hurt like hell. But they are doing well, a foot doctor told me so.

I drove to the VA Hospital today some 80-something-miles away in Houston, bad knee and all. This was my semi-annual checkup with the podiatrist. He clipped my toenails. Those on my right leg are hard to trim because I still have to wear that damn knee brace. I go back to the knee doctor next week. And to the sleep doctor. And to my primary care doctor. Were they all in one place, say the Houston VA Hospital, I could just pitch a tent in the lobby. But, of course, the appointments are in three different locations.

A good foot report is good news for a diabetic. The pain in my feet now are likely a byproduct of that diabetes. I really don’t know why they hurt so badly. Perhaps it stemmed from tight socks in shoes for a total of three hours on the road. Maybe it was the Coney Cheese Dog and Onion Rings I had at James Coney Island. Maybe, but it was a good lunch. I don’t know what made my feet hurt.  I don’t even know how I got on this subject. Perhaps it is because my aching feet overtake every other thought I have. Still, my intention of “soldiering on” through my hurting feet and knee was to pass along this column from Chicago Sun-Times writer Neil Steinberg.

Steinberg hits at the anger I feel over this entire story over the return of prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl who was held by the Taliban. The anger isn’t at Bergdahl. It isn’t at Obama. The anger comes from the nut cases, mostly Republicans, who could give a rat’s ass less that an American soldier is back in the purportedly friendly hands of his government. The anger at Bergdahl and Obama, it’s just whipped up meanness by a political party that is falling apart at the seams. The war these days is more between the so-called “mainstream” GOP and the Tea Party. The Tea Party didn’t make much hay in the primary congressional races of late so they’re pissed, and the sweat that is staining those starched white shirts of those starched white Republicans are pissing the old-line off to no end. The GOP will eventually go the way of the Whigs, Princess telephones and ashtrays on airliners.

But yes, I am pissed too! The GOP and the media and who knows who(m) else are too freaking ignorant when it comes to the armed forces because so few have served these days. Though perhaps some who have served skip the bad parts. Most of us do that. Hey, it’s more fun to remember the time we got shitfaced in Subic City and one of our shipmates, whose name I won’t mention — it wasn’t me by the way — met us at the door of a certain joint all dressed up in a Filipina’s stripping outfit of G-string and pasties. But I am willing to bet most service members remember more than one or two fellow shipmates or soldiers who went on leave or on liberty and never came back.

Going over the hill, as we used to call desertion, is not that rare. I’ve had close friends who deserted. It wasn’t during war that they left. So they weren’t shot. Of course, I don’t think anyone has been shot for desertion during combat since Eddie Slovik in WWII. Also, it isn’t just with Bergdahl, nor just with the military, but it seems that the presumption of innocence, that has long been such a great point of judicial magnificence with our system, has seemingly disappeared. Everyone knows Bergdahl is guilty, all the Republican senators say so. Everyone knows that whomever the subject of Nancy Grace’s show tonight is guilty, because she says so.

Military trials, court martials as they are called, are already stacked against defendants because of the way trials are structured. See the Manual for Courts Martial. I am too tired to try to explain it.

Bowe Bergdahl may escape punishment once, if and when, we find out all the particulars about his escapade. Or perhaps he may be punished. Whatever happens, I hope all goes well as possible for the young man. Five years with the Taliban as a guest seems like punishment enough.

The good news, of course, my diabetic feet seem in good shape. They also are feeling better, thank you.

 

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Shinseki gone. It’s time for the VA to heal itself.

My high hopes for Gen. Eric Shinseki taking an already overburdened and poorly-managed Department of Veterans Affairs were dashed early. Oh, I suppose I gave him more time than was warranted. But just because I continued to see the VA healthcare system imploding from the ground up didn’t mean that a total collapse had yet made it to the top of the food chain. Regardless of my poor vision of the cluster f**k of a bureaucracy that is the VA, the situation has progressed even beyond that state expressed in the old military acronym SNFAU. For those of you unfamiliar with the term — for those of you returning visitors from Zimbawe — it means “Situation Normal All F**ked Up.” Shinseki resigned today and many talking heads were a bit too timid to bury the retired four-star in their disgust. The general did, after all, have half of his foot blown off in the Vietnam War. And from the political and pundit class who might call their target of opportunity a “sonofabitch” they are sure to add “But we thank him for his service.” Such is similar to the way veterans are treated by the VA these days. Oh, not all of them, for sure. Not even the majority of them. One may be certain, though, when more than a thousand, who knows for certain even how many, maybe tens of thousands, are used in a numerical shell game when all they seek is medical treatment there remains a certainty that these veterans are not treated in the respectful manner in which even an injured dog would receive. I had erroneously believed the hiding of veterans seeking appointments was for specialty treatment. Specialists have, for at least the past 20 years I have used the VA for health care, been the scarcest of medical commodity. It is not uncommon to see residents, physician assistants or even nurse practitioners when attending specialty clinic appointments. It’s the luck of the draw. Oh, if you are sick enough or suffering from a critical injury, you’ll likely be attended to or at least overseen by a board certified specialist. It seems though, the veterans in the news are those that were seeking primary care however. That boggles my mind as bureaucratic insanity at its worst.

The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Medical Center in Houston.
The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Medical Center in Houston.

The VA bureaucracy is like this: Washington–>three separate administrations for Health, Benefits and Cemeteries–>Regions–>Regional benefit offices–>Regional-to-extra-regional systems called “VISNs” for Veterans Integrated Service Networks–>Health care networks based on a large VA hospital system (mine is the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Medical Center in Houston)–>Community-based outpatient centers–>Vet Centers–>The veterans. That’s not even including the National Cemeteries the VA oversees.

Now don’t you think at least one level somewhere in this wicked matrix could be eliminated? I had two dealings with the VA this week. One was concerning an appointment. The other relating to a complaint from an appointment last week. I had scheduled an appointment for a clinic for which I went almost 15 years without a follow-up. I will not say which one. I can understand long wait times because of the particular clinic and will say part of the reason for the failure was situational. Nevertheless, my appointment was Wednesday, 80 miles away in Houston. There is a toll-free phone number on which patients may hear their appointments as well as manage their prescriptions. I called the night before to make sure the time was what I was last told. The clinics usually send letters with appointment information at least a few weeks before. They also give automated calls within a week of the appointment during which one can confirm, cancel or reschedule. I did not receive a letter for this clinic. I do not remember receiving a call. This month I had an unusually high number of appointments in Houston. It was just how they happened to fall. When I called to check on this clinic, it was not listed. I called the “Telecare” staff in Houston and the notation they had on their computer indicated that I had cancelled the appointment. They didn’t know when or why. I had taken a day of leave, which have become scarce lately because of various medical and other problems. I was livid and wrote a very scathing letter to the department that oversees customer complaints. I didn’t hesitate to drop a few names either. I hate when I do that, but unfortunately one can only receive relatively quick response unless some kind of “enhancement” is employed. I received a call early the next morning saying the clinic responsible would be contacted. They were and I was called by the clinic. The person who called told me once again that I had cancelled the appointment by phone. I have seen some of these specialty clinic top people in Houston go directly into their best “Cover Your Ass” mode when such a problem happens. I told the person who called that what she said sounded like someone who was trying to “cover their rear ends.” I’m so nice. Well, I came away with a rescheduled appointment in two weeks. Later, I received a call from the VA Police Department in Houston. I thought, “OMG, they think I’m a nut and are going to give me the third degree!” Instead the officer was following up a complaint I left in a “suggestion box” regarding parking. I mentioned quite succinctly that the medical center had incessantly bragged as to how they have eased the parking problems at the hospital. Steps have been made including a free valet service. However, I am not comfortable with someone else driving my pickup, at least someone I don’t know. Parking lots have supposedly been expanded for patients and employees. But during my last visit I spent some 30 minutes trying to find a place where I would not have to walk too far to the hospital. I continue to have knee problems, especially when walking for a distance. Well, the officer was quite thorough explaining where parking has been increased and it was mostly on the side that I didn’t want to park. However, she said there now are shuttle vans that drive through the parking lots which will pick up patients and take them to the lobby. Apparently, these vans aren’t well advertised but if I can indeed flag one down to get it to drive me to a close entrance then this entire exercise will have been worth it. This is just one small example of how the VA can fix things when they put their minds to it. It looks as if now is the time for great minds to converge and not at just one medical center. The whole system has needed help for years. It is time to fix the VA.