Health Care

Generally, I avoid political debate or commentary. Rarely , if ever, does anything contructive ensue. So, if you are looking for a political debate here, it won't happen. I am going to talk about the deception being perpetuated on the American people.

Debating how we, as a society, are going to pay for health insurance is not a debate on health care. I don't know when the two became synonomous in the eyes of most Americans but they certainly have. Right now, today, all over this country, if you have a need for medical treatment you can get it without health insurance. Yes, you have to pay for it. But isn't that the way it should be?

I don't understand why someone has the expectation that others should pay for his/her blood pressure medication. Does this same person expect others to pay his/her rent? Does this person expect others to pay for that Big Mac or Whopper? Going without food or shelter will kill you a hell of a lot faster than going without blood pressure meds.

In my opinion, and it is just that, my opinion, I won't post a link to some website or web article to back up my opinion, the high cost of health care is a result of people not giving a damn what it cost because health insurance was picking up the tab. Human nature being what it is, if we perceive something to be free, we will take all that we can get, whether we actually need it or not.

Here is my plan.

1: Employers STOP paying any portion of our health insurance premiums. Pay that amount to each employee in cash every payday. Put the money in the hands of the individual and let the individual decide whether to pay that money to an insurance company or directly to the entity that provides his/her chosen amount of healthcare.

2: Place a cap on malpractice settlements.

3: Make medical malpractice a criminal offense. Put a few bad doctors in jail and other doctors will begin to pay attention.

4: Ban pharmaceutical advertising on television. The cost of drugs will drop and, even better, we will stop turning ourselves into a nation of hypochondriacs.

Mentoring

Mentoring is one of those buzz-words that we have adopted in the past few years. It is also something that has been going on forever. Back in the "good old days" if you wanted to learn something, you found someone who was doing it and just hung around, asking questions and generally getting in the way until one of them took pity on you and showed you the ropes.

This is the way I learned pretty much everything that I know. Sometimes I learned the right way and sometimes I was almost killed by some bad advice or teaching. The lessons that stuck, though, were those that gave good advice followed by an "ahhh shit" moment when trying to implement the lesson.

One of those lessons can be summed up quite succinctly with the following statement. " Always park your motorcycle facing uphill." It sounds easy enough and even makes total sense from a physics point of view. Most of us understand that the kickstand rotates from back to front to a predetermined stop and it stands to reason that if the kickstand is down and the bike moves forward the stand will rotate back to the folded position and the bike will fall down. Simple, isn't it? But, there are always those who don't quite grasp that concept.

I met one of those guys a few days ago. My employer provides parking for about 20 bikes. The lot is on a slight slope. It is simple enough to pull forward into a space and be left with the bike facing uphill. Snap down the kickstand, leave the bike in gear, and the bike rests securely on three points of contact with the ground.

A few days ago I watched a guy trying to back his bike into a parking spot. He grunted and groaned, feet slipping on the asphalt as he backed the 600 pound bike uphill into the parking spot. Of course I had to watch, I like to see a good crash. As I was taking my helmet off he finally got it positioned where he wanted it, put the kickstand down and dismounted, reaching up to unfasten the chinstrap on his helmet.

His bike began to inch downhill. I shouted, he turned to look at me, saw me pointing at his bike, looked back, saw it moving and tipping as the kickstand folded up. He grabbed for the bike but it was too late. The bike fell, taking him down with it. I ran over. Ok, I waddled over.

The bike had him pinned but not hurt. I grabbed the handlebars, squeezed the front brake lever and tipped the bike upright. He lay on the ground as I popped the shifter down putting the bike in gear and dropped the kickstand. I turned to help him up.

"Hey, don't put the bike in gear, man," he said as I helped him up.

"Why not," I asked ?

"It fucks up the transmission or something," he said as he brushed himself off, "They need to put a parking brake on these things".

"Um, ok, so why don't you park facing uphill, like everyone else", I asked ?

He looked at me with pity, "Because it is easier to back it uphill than downhill with one foot on the ground".

I had to ask, you know I did, this was getting better all the time. "Why would you only have the use of one foot when you backed downhill"?

He sighed with exaspiration, "Because you have to have one foot on the brake".

"Ohhhh," I said, thoughtfully, looking confused, "Can't you use the front brake and keep both feet on the ground"?

"Hell no!", giving me that look reserved for total morons, "You can't use the front brake in parking lots at walking speed, it makes you crash"!

I closed my mouth, looked perplexed for a minute, wrinkled my brow and said, "But, if you are backing up, doesn't that make your front brake your back brake"?

I could see I had him now, he was seriously thinking about that. But, when you hook a real fish, there is no fun in just yanking him into the boat, you have to play him a bit.

"You can make a parking brake, you know", I said with a straight face, "you can either use a wheel chock, or just wrap a rubber band around your front brake lever when you get parked like this. I think I have one of the big rubber bands on my bike".

I opened a saddle bag and took a rubber band off my rainsuit and gave it to him.
He wrapped it around and around the brake lever until the lever was squeezed tight, then popped the bike out of gear. It stayed parked and upright.

As we walked across the parking lot, my new best friend chattered on, telling me his life story as I smiled and thought to myself, "this mentoring crap is fun".

Chaos...

is no longer just a theory. We are living it.

In the Septic Tank there is a constant background of words. Many profane, but even the profane ones have no real meaning. An inmate calls me to his door and says he has a question. I try to listen as he launches into a long and winding dissertation.

" Hey, CO, can you do me a favor?"

"Sorry, I don't do favors, but what is your question?"

"Look man, the motherfuckers locked me up this mornin', right?"

"OK."

"and like, I got a motherfuckin' TASC day, right?"

" No sir, you do not have a TASC day. You have to be here 24 hours before you get a TASC day"

" Look motherfucker, I gots me a TASC day!"

"No sir, you have to be here 24 hours before you get a TASC day."

" aight, aight, aight, well look , I needs me a phone call"

" Sir, you don't get a phone call until you have a TASC day and you have to be here 24 hours before you have a TASC day."

" HEY, DAWG!!!!!" shouted into my ear as the inmate yells across the wing to someone in another cell, "WHA CHOO DOIN', MAN?"

The response is an unintelligible burst of noise echoing across the wing from the other inmate.

"MOTHERFUCKIN' COP THINKS EYES A NEWBIE !!!!! TELL 'IM DAWG, EYES A GANGSTA MOTHAFUCKA, DAWG, HEAR ME?"

As I turn to walk away the little white guy that wants his TASC day says, "Where you goin' muthafucka ? I gets me a phone call, aight! I knows I gets me a phone call, you fat fuckin' faggot !"

I smile and begin to walk away and then, in a pleading, generic whitebread tone of voice he asks, "CO, can I get some toilet paper?"

Playing God

Sometime around the first week of June someone dropped four dogs into our world. We didn't want a dog and we really didn't want four of them. My wife and I pretended to ignore them for a week or so, but they kept hanging around. I went around to the neighbors to see if they belonged to anyone. They didn't.

I called the sheriff's office and was told there was nothing they could do about stray dogs but that I had the right to protect my property and livestock. We don't have livestock so to rationalize killing the dogs to protect my property was a bit of a stretch. I ignored them for another week or so.

Even though we were not feeding them they began to get territorial, sleeping under the cars and charging out barking when anyone approached. On my next day off, with my wife at work, I took the .22 rifle out. Two of the dogs charged out from beneath my pickup truck and I shot them. The other two ran in directions that made it unsafe to shoot. I spent the rest of my day off disposing of bodies. I hoped that the other two would not come back.

They did. A few days later my wife came home from work and found one of the dogs under the pickup with a new litter of pups. Twelve of them. Being who she is, she of course made a bed in the barn and moved the pups and mother into the barn and went to town and bought food. This is one of the reasons that I love her. She is sometimes loud and gruff but she is one of the kindest people that I have ever known.

Ma was starving at that point, so emaciated that every rib stuck out, and she was covered with ticks. I expected most of the pups to die. They didn't. Of course, since we were feeding the mother we had to feed the other stray. Flea and tick collars took care of the tick problem and both dogs began to eat and gain weight although Ma was slow to recover due to nursing 12 pups.

I know, most of you are thinking, "You should have killed the pups then and been finished with it". I didn't. I couldn't. It was never the dogs fault that they were here. I could have killed whoever dropped them off, but killing the dogs was not easy for me.

Over the next couple of weeks we bought material to make a pen for the pups as they got older and took Dumbass, the other stray to the vet and had her spayed, thinking it would be easier to give her away if she was healthy and spayed. No one would take her.

As we began to see the personalities of the adult dogs emerge we, of course, became attached to them. Dumbass is turning out to be a pretty good dog. She stays outside, comes when you call her and generally protects the place. One evening , after dark when my wife was home alone, Dumbass began to make a racket, barking, growling and snarling. Shortcake turned the porch light on to find a man at the bottom of the steps. Dumbass stayed between her and the stranger until the man left. She is a keeper.

Ma, on the other hand, was not a keeper. As the pups got older and she left them for longer periods she spent her time chasing cars, barking at mouse farts two counties away and chasing anything that moved. She wouldn't come when we called her but would slink away only to reappear and start raising hell again. The yard looks like a war zone where she has dug huge holes. We gritted our teeth because of the puppies.

Now the pups are weaned, most of them gone to homes with people who wanted them. We have three left but two are spoken for. I guess we will keep the third.

Today I killed Ma. I did not "put her down". It wasn't euthanasia. It was murder. Premeditated. I had tried to shoot her before but she seemed to have a sense of when to place herself where I could not get a shot. Today, I tricked her. I coaxed her to me with a dog treat and soft words. Then I placed the muzzle of the pistol to the back of her head and squeezed the trigger.

In the beginning...

there was man. There was woman. There was nature and cute little critters that man could kill and woman could cook. Life was good. Man and woman killed, cooked and procreated. They procreated a lot. They made more men and women who went forth killing, cooking and procreating. They were happy.

One day man tried to procreate with woman after a successful kill and cookout. Woman was tired from the cooking, complained that her back hurt from kneeling and bending to cook. Man thought and thought. Procreating face to face was invented by necessity. Life was good.

Soon after the advent of what we now know as the "missionary position" man attempted to procreate with woman. In this position womans mouth was near mans ear. She talked. Man, to his amazement, learned that woman was unhappy. Her back hurt from bending over to skin and butcher the animals which he killed. Procreating was not as much fun now.

Man went out with other men to hunt. They found fermented berries and sat under a shade tree eating berries and napping. That night, during prcreation, woman talked even more. Man fell asleep.

The next morning woman went out gather wood with other women. They talked, a lot. There was no procreating by anyone that night. Or the next.Or the night after that.

One morning, after a night of drinking fermented berry juice and no procreating, man took his stone ax out to the woods. He cut down a huge tree. He didn't need to cut down the tree, but he needed to release some pent up "energy". He finally wandered deeper into the woods and got a grip on himself.

He returned to the cave to find woman smiling and happy. She thanked him for cutting down the tree. She used the stump for a table and tonight, her back did not hurt. They procreated.

Soon after, all the other men in the tribe cut down trees for their women and all were happily procreating. Soon there were stumps everywhere with women happily working away. Then it rained.

They retreated to the cave and woman began to complain as she knelt on the ground preparing dinner. Man could not drink his fermented berry juice in peace. He went out in the rain, climbing over and through the fallen trees to sit gazing at the field of stumps. He sat and thought. He saw how an over-turned birds nest kept the ground beneath it dry. He took the nest apart. That night there was no procreating.

Early the next morning he began building a huge upside down birds nest over womans stump. it was warm and dry and they procreated. A lot. The other men heard the procreation. The other women heard the prcreation. After the procreation woman proclaimed loudly how warm and dry the upside birds nest was.

In the ages that followed men rose early to build upside down bird nests. Sometimes we even get to procreate if woman likes the birds nest.

The Information Super-Highway

Many years ago my job required that I obtain access to the internet at home. The company that I had my tractor/trailer leased to was joining the information super-highway and the only way to get loads would be through their website. I was actually pretty excited about this and we acquired a custom built pc and an extra phone line.

It worked out pretty well for the business. There were also some amazing side benefits and some real disappointments. Being a fan of pornography I was delighted with the selections available. I admit that there were times I actually fell asleep waiting for the pictures to load on dial-up but it was cheaper than buying the magazines.

Another perceived benefit were the numerous writers forums that I discovered. At last I felt that I would be able to connect with a group of people who would understand my compulsion to write. I immediately began submitting poems and stories for critiquing on various forums. I should have read some of the forums before I began posting.

Those doing critiques, almost without exception, fell into two general categories. The first group looked for the "hidden" meaning in anything they read. In their world it appeared as if there was no such thing as simple entertainment. There had to be a message or, at least, an insight into the authors personal psychosis in anything that was ever written. They never understood that some people simply like to tell stories.

This is only a test

Today's entry is more of a test than anything else. I added a hit counter and a place for my faithful followers to post their comments. Only positive comments will be tolerated. I need the ego boost.

Some of you may not like the turn that this blog will be taking. Too bad, it is my mind and I will use it as I see fit. I will attempt to make social comments disguised as intellectual philosophy. Mostly I will vent and whine.