Category: Orphans

Well, the good news is I’ve been cleared from the “No Fly” list.  I think.

I’m referring to an October incident in which I was not allowed to print a boarding pass prior to a flight to Memphis. The airline folks said it was something like the “No Fly” list in which a passenger is screened for extra security by the Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Nothing happened except I was inconvenienced by having to check in at the Continental ticket counter. I didn’t go through any extra scrutiny by TSA in the actual screening before the flight. No pat downs, no wands and thankfully no cavity searches. Just take off your shoes. Pull your computer out. And, this was new, take out your CPAP machine, which I use for sleep apnea.

On my return flight to Texas, I had no problem printing a boarding pass.

Later, I found a link on the TSA Web site where one can receive information on how to clear your name if you wind up on a watch list or have something happen which requires added security. It’s called TRIP, appropriately named, not because of the obvious reference to “trip” — as in taking a trip by flying. I think its name fits because the whole experience is a “trip.” Wow man. Far out. Groovy.

You can file your redress request online and you get a “Control Number.” This allows you to track your request, kind of like tracking a package on FedEx but much slower. The only time I tracked my case, it noted that my request had been decided and I would be replied to in writing. That seemed like two months ago.

But lo and behold, I received a letter yesterday from the Department of Homeland Security. It stated:

“In response to your request, we conducted a review of any applicable records in consultation with other Federal agencies, as appropriate. Where it was determined that a correction to records was warranted, these records were modified to address any delay or denial of boarding that you may have experienced as a result of the watch list screening process.”

So that sounds as if the DHS did something concerning my experience, or maybe not. But the department did acknowledge what I “may have experienced” was a result of the “watch list” process. Thus, one would think by that language that they had me on a “watch list.”  Why, I would be watched, I can”t imagine. I’m the dullest person this side of the Sabine River these days. I used to raise hell when I was younger, but I was never what one could call a radical. Well, relatively speaking.

All”s well that ends well, though. Hopefully. The National Security Agency or TSA itself will probably read this and put me back on a watch list, for whatever reason. Or even worse, I’ll be flying somewhere some day and all of a sudden an air marshal will pluck me out of my seat, throw me down on the cabin floor and handcuff me. If that happens, I might know the reason for it in such an instance, or at least part of the reason.

CBS News broke a story a couple of nights ago about what appears to be rampant discrimination in the TSA’s air marshal program. There is a whole list of minorities and other groups the flying cops like to target for some type of hassle or another. On that list are disabled veterans.

Now I’m not a disabled veteran. Well, I’m somewhat disabled due to my medical problems, from chronic pain at least. And I am a veteran. But I am not what is called a disabled veteran in the government sense, also known as “service-connected.” That means the disability was a result of or happened during military service.

I have been looking on the Web and have been unable to find why the air marshals are all up in the air, pun intended, when it comes to disabled veterans. The only possible beef I could think of is that “qualified disabled veterans” receive a 10 percent advantage over people with no military service or service-connected disability when it comes to hiring for a federal job such as air marshal. I don’t know if that is it or not.

However, the CBS report indicated many of the air marshals who were said to be in a snit were former Secret Service agents. That too is a federal job. So I don’t know.

It will be interesting to see if DHS finds anything in their investigation and, if so, will do anything. In the meantime, I am going to try and stay off the watch list, or better yet, stay off airliners.

Happy Groundhog Day.

Seriously, some people actually celebrate the day the townsfolk of Punxsutawney, Pa., drag the cuddly little rodent Punxsutawney Phil out of his hole to predict the fate of winter. It is six more weeks if Phil sees its shadow or winter will come to an end in six weeks if no shadow falls from the little groundhog.

Phil saw its shadow today or so say his handlers. We can go on the supposition that groundhogs recognize shadows, in their own little groundhog way. Whether or not they can predict weather is a matter of belief, such as Santa Claus. Of course, anyone with any sense knows damn well that Santa is real.

There are tons of Punxsutawney Phil knockoffs these days: Gen. Beauregard Lee of Atlanta, Buckeye Chuck of Ohio, Jimmy the Groundhog of Wisconsin and so forth. Whether these weather prediction experts see their shadow and foretell winter matters more on geography and meteorology than true superstition.

We don’t have a groundhog to forecast weather here in Beaumont, on the upper Texas coast near Louisiana. Hell, I don’t even know if we have groundhogs in Texas. I will check and get back with you on that, but don’t hold your breath, please. I suppose we would have to come up with a nutria with a Cajun name, such as Boudreaux Bill or something of that ilk if we were to have a Phil impersonator. Since we average nearly 60 inches of precipitation a year, it would be a good bet that Boudreaux wouldn’t see his shadow. It depends, of course, on the time of day and the time of year.

I think a lot of TV stations miss out on a bet by not having their weatherman come out of a hole on Groundhog Day. A hole is where some of them certainly belong. I won’t mention any names.

Personally, when I see my shadow on groundhog day it means the sun is shining or the cops have hit me with a spotlight. My prediction: six more weeks of winter. A late snow in February. Then, smooth sailing about mid-March. That’s just a guess. But it works for me.

Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.  Diogenes

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.

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.