Eight Feet Deep

Give certain people a substance — any substance — and they’ll try to use it to get intoxicated. And when someone gets high — anyone — some people will try to make a mountain out of a mothball, er, mole hill. So it comes no surprise to read Jack Shafer’s piece in “Slate” in which he rips yet another media hysteria that comes from virtually nothing.

Shafer, in his ‘Stupid story of the week,’ writes about media overkill derived from stories about two teens huffing mothballs. Yes, two, as in one-two, dos, II. This journalistic hand-wringing stems from a medical study which indicated only three previous cases of mothball intoxication have ever been reported. Call out the DEA!

The media can indeed have some stupid stories at times. Of course, I would bet a huge majority of those stories comes from a desperate and somewhat dim-witted editor somewhere who is desperate for something to feed the beast. Remember this from editor school 101: Never let reality and good sense damper a sensational story.

Iced tea is made for sweltering Southeast Texas days such as today. I had a glass of tea earlier today along with some ribs at Patillo’s in Beaumont. And while the ribs were great, the iced tea tasted like I had just found water after being stranded in the desert. Cold, unsweetened tea — it just can’t be beat sometimes.

I look back on my days as a kid and wondered how I ever drank sweet tea. Or Coca Cola or any number of sweet things I feasted upon. I drink a Coke once in a blue moon, or if I want a little variety from bourbon and water. I don’t eat sweets a lot either. Perhaps I will have a little pecan pie or piece of cake every now and then. I usually do my sweet consumption around Christmas. I also like a White Russian every now and then, but just to show I’m not a bigot, I also like a Black Russian sometimes.

Now I’m not saying sweet tea is something horrible. It’s just something I can’t hack anymore, like cigarettes and “The Simpsons.” To each his or her own, I suppose. His or her own what, I’m not certain. But that is just something I will have to tackle another day.

I kind of feel like this fellow today.
To say things aren’t going well for me today is an understatement. Someone broke in line in front of me at the store today and I beat her unmercifully with a rack full of “Weekly World News.” By the way, I like the WWN’s online story this week about a soda jerk who lives up to his name.

Actually, I didn’t beat someone at the store with a rack of tabloids. I haven’t even been to the store today. I was just making that up to illustrate the point that I don’t feel well today and things are going to s**t.

So ‘scuse me while I tend to the rest of my day that has turned:

abhorrent, appalling, atrocious, awe-inspiring, awesome, awful, bad, beastly, dangerous, desperate, dire, disastrous, disturbing, dread, dreaded, dreadful, extreme, fearful, frightful, ghastly, gruesome, harrowing, ful, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrid, horrifying, inconvenient, loathsome, monstrous, obnoxious, odious, offensive, petrifying, poor, repulsive, revolting, rotten, serious, severe, shocking, unfortunate, unnerving, unpleasant, unwelcome, vile.

I took some pictures of North Street in Beaumont, Texas, this morning before I left for some errands. Unfortunately, the shots didn’t come out so well.

Had the photos been of near-blog quality or, somehow, better they would have shown my street looking as if we had landed in Venice (the one in Italy). It has rained heavily this morning due to a low-pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico that didn’t quite become an “official” tropical depression.

But alas, it is tropical enough to make me want to break out my old Jimmy Buffet cassettes and drink hurricanes or, at the very least, Barq’s Root Beer.

The rain added on to the soaking we had yesterday. The combination of the relentless rain and poor driving made for some interesting driving in the ‘hood. Driving in water that is elevated – yet not quite swift enough to sweep you away and onto a daring rescue shown on CNN — is a bit like driving a boat near other boaters. You try to avoid making a wake that will fill the other guy’s car up with water. Also, driving fast and braking quick isn’t the best of ideas.

I’m heading home in a few, hopefully it will be smooth sailing for the time being. That is, at least until the next wave of rain comes to dump upon us. Did I ever tell you that I really like the rain? Call me crazy, but yeah, I do.

Since a lot of new military veterans are being produced by our state of war, I thought I would pass something along that might be helpful to new veterans or their families who are new to using the VA for health care. It’s not that I figure a lot of people are going to see this little ol’ blog in Beaumont, Texas, but one never knows who may stop by.

So here is the deal. The VA is the second largest cabinet department in the U.S. Government behind the Defense Department. As such, it’s a gigantic-ass bureaucracy like DoD. Bureaucracies, as most people realize, are in the business of keeping their jobs or expanding their kingdoms. So that should be a self-explanatory warning when dealing with the VA.

Secondly, the VA is continually underfunded and thus is often overcrowded with people which also slows down their responding to patients as quickly as they should.

Finally, as is the case with any bureaucracies, there are a few ass****s in the system. Enough said.

One veteran, once using the VA medical system, has just as much right as another to have adequate care. If you feel you or your loved one is not being responded to properly, here is my secret to the successful care and feeding of the VA medical system.

1. Call your VA patient representative or consumer affairs office. As far as I know all VA hospitals and clinics have these reps whose job it is to help the veteran get through all the bullshit. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.

2. When the patient rep route doesn’t seem to be working, find your local congressional office. Craft a sensible letter and deliver it to the Congress member’s local office if possible, or get their fax number and fax the letter to their VA caseworker or other caseworkers in the office. Don’t rant and rave. Just calmly lay out the problem and ask that it be investigated.

Federal bureaucracies and their local representatives don’t like congressional investigations. Sometimes a threat of writing your congress member works, but usually it doesn’t. You usually have to write a letter to get the VA’s attention.

3. If all else fails, make up a placard and picket your local VA facility. However, stand just off the property grounds unless you ask for permission to protest on the facility’s property. The last thing you want if you have medical problems is to be put in jail.

If none of the above works, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve never had to resort to No. 3, but have successfully used 1 and 2 numerous times.

Good luck, and don’t let the bastards get you down.