Stop the war now!

30 September, 2019

   War has nothing to recommend it. Oh sure, some people speak of the ways war is a boost to economy. One who takes time to notice telling details, will likely find those who tout economic advantages of these deadly conflicts, have little or no actual "skin in the game."

*

   Daily, one becomes aware of individuals who are at grave risk from the ravages of disease. Some are refugees from war-torn countries; some are seeking political asylum; some are the working poor. United States "middle class" seems in danger of disappearing, leaving ultra wealthy individuals and the very poor. It has been pointed out that being rich is not a crime. I believe unless a person uses wealth to better the lives of others, perhaps it should be. Undoubtedly, some will say mine is a "sour grapes" attitude but I assure you, it is not. My wants and needs are simple and I live well, within my means. I do think my lifestyle should be a universal minimum standard. I have no problem with some being extremely well-to-do: just so long as no one is so poor they do not have the veritable pot to piss in. It may just be my opinion but I don't think a "war on poverty" is supposed to eliminate it buy killing off poor people.
   Some argue the wealthy may spend as they see fit, because it is their money. Is it really? Unless wealth was earned solely by one's own physical labor, someone else contributed to it and should rightly be given due recompense. CEOs whose salaries exceed the earnings of company workers - by several hundred times are, not to put too fine a point on it, crooks. There are companies that often do not pay workers a living wage: said workers must work multiple jobs and/or apply for assistance.
   To add insult to injury, United States legislators are implementing/seeking ways to make the process more difficult and re-evaluating participants, to force "able-bodied" people to work a minimum of twenty hours per week. (This may also be happening in other countries besides U.S.) Ostensibly, this is being done to reduce the number of recipients and weed out "welfare queens." These boneheads just don't get it: with few exceptions, those who can work are already working - most of them much harder than many of these glorified bean counters ever even thought about working.
   Privilege messes up priorities: people who have always had  life easy, often think less fortunate individuals are "slackers." Money can also affect memory to a point at which the "nouveau riche" forget obstacles which impeded them. We as individuals need to live our own lives to the best of our abilities. We should also, as society, make it a priority to help disadvantaged individuals recognize their full potentials.
   You may think this blog's title has nothing to do with its content. Too often, war is glorified, to stir up fervor for warmongers' selfish desires. Language also exhibits way too much militarism, in further misguided glorification. Feelings of "patriotism" are being co-opted into nationalism. Residents of countries that have taken in refugees, now grumble that their national identity is being destroyed. When cultures meet, they should find ways to blend, instead of clash.
   We need to open our hearts and minds to change, instead of being bound up in isolationism. Rigidity leads to breakage, whereas flexibility is the way to attain enduring strength. Do not be afraid of change: welcome it as a means of renewed and increased potential. Give peace a chance.

When Love leaves

Fourth Quarter 2019
Dear One,
   Autumnal equinox has come to the region in which I dwell, and I have been answering several missives. Sometimes I need to refer back to previous letters, to form adequate responses and apply context. A most thought-provoking query has come my way: What do we do when God leaves? [And how do we know? - this is my own question; not put forth by asker of first query.]
   Verily, I had not pondered this supposition, ere now. Church leaders insist God never leaves, insisting that if we feel bereft, the "fault" is within us. Having known love to dissipate, seemingly of its own volition, my friend and I challenged that stance and discussed it at length.
   Those brought up "churched," are taught God is Love. There are many forms and fashions, designating kinds of love: parental love nurtures a child; filial love is accorded members of one's family [biological or chosen]; erotic love is that shared with one's partner; and agápi is selfless love. Obviously there are nuances and shadings which individuals grow into, throughout life experiences. If we hold that God is Love, must we not also see Sacred in Truth; Light; and Creativity: for do not those forces also come from/embody Love?
   I began to wonder if maybe we humans put too much onus on our deities - Supreme or otherwise. If one is inclined to ascribe power to a supernatural entity, one likely expects said entity to be around when needed. When it begins to feel that God has gone away, one understandably feels betrayed and abandoned, particularly if it seems Almighty has just lost interest. I once phrased this sentiment thus: "It seems God should always be there, unless we *declare emancipation;* like when kids divorce their parents. Or maybe like a semi-neglected spouse. You know - when there's no more 'magic' but there's no call for divorce either."
   Perhaps believers do Sacred a disservice, holding God to impossible standards. After all, does not even Creator of All That Is, deserve the occasional "bad hair" day? Who among us knows how perturbed and frustrated a Being can become, during Time without beginning or end?
   My own prayer life bears little to no resemblance to its former self, which is not the impediment some may suppose. My attempts to be a better person are no longer motivated by hopes of meriting placement in some unseen Kingdom; merely by a desire to be and to do, good. If ever a deity were 'there,' It will continue to be so, despite any action or inaction on my part. Anyway, I have for years held the belief that the further humans drifted from revering Goddess,the worse off the species became. What else lies behind the mania to subjugate women and deny their human rights/body autonomy?
   Do you ever question the validity of [the] Three Ohs: omnipotence; omniscience; and omnipresence? Even if God's own self is not a man-made construct, surely the concept [of God] most assuredly is. Personally, I believe part of the problem can be laid squarely at the door of western culture, which deals so much in black and white, when most things are shades of gray. Westerners deny themselves the charms and comforts of mysticism: either something can be proved beyond shadow of doubt or it is dismissed as "smoke and mirrors." What a miserable excuse for a life.
   If one but gives one's heart and mind a bit of creative space, one finds oneself thinking elevated thoughts. Perhaps one will write New Be-Attitudes: Blessed are the inconvenient, for they shall raise awareness; Blessed are those deemed "insignificant," they too have meaning; Blessed are the weirdos, for we shall persevere - and one day, lead the lost. This last brings to mind climate activist Greta Thunberg. Some likely deem her "weird," as the young woman acknowledges she has Asperger syndrome. Greta is undeniably a force to be reckoned with and as such, may well deliver us from ourselves. At the very least, she will help show the way.
   If you are one who believes in God, I hope you are able to "keep the faith," even if you *lose your religion;* faith is, by far, the better of the two.

The straight poop

   The incident of myocardial infarction which affected my life, occurred 6 September, 2010.
An infarction is defined thus: obstruction of the blood supply to an organ or region of tissue, typically by a thrombus or embolus, causing local death of the tissue.
   Maybe it's just me, but did you notice similarity between the words "infarction" and "infraction"?  Latter is approximately synonymous with "misbehaving." So, in other words, my heart muscle misbehaved.
   Time adds perspective to life events. Now that it has been a while since my coronary incident, I thought I'd share the experience. May you find it informative and amusing.

*****

Shannon Medical Center: San Angelo, TX
7-14 September, 2010

"Going undercover" generally implies an element of intrigue, a degree of danger, a hint of romance. Well, there was definitely a degree of danger - hence the phrase "serious as a heart attack."    Now if you don't like a movie, a play or a meal, you can walk out and go someplace else and that's that. Anyway, while there are movie critics, theater critics and food critics, where are you going to find an unbiased hospital critic? Do hospitals solicit big name patients with exotic illnesses or conditions and offer discount treatment for a good review? Actually, I have been informed that big city hospitals do, in fact, solicit celebrity patients. But it's not like people wander in off the street and say, "I think I'll have the heart catheterization: Do you have a particularly recommended surgeon?" *    As an aspiring journalist, it behooves me to recognize the story potential of whatever circumstances I find myself encountering. This is the story of my inadvertent stay at a top notch medical care facility.    It began 6 September, 2010, while walking Baby, my neighbor's overweight dachshund. After making the block, I was pretty well winded and felt like a cylinder the diameter of my forearm was running from between my shoulder blades to my sternum. Reclining on my friend's sofa, I experienced pain so intense it nearly brought me to tears.    That afternoon, a certified ECA (Emergency Care Attendant) advised me to seek immediate medical attention. The stubborn need to proceed at my own pace [plus just not having an appetite for the condescension of some medical personnel] caused an 18 hour delay in following his advice. Plus, I was loathe to be chastised for my weight and not taking my meds. (If a fat person walked into a doctor's office, carrying a severed limb, the first question would undoubtedly be, "What are you doing to lose weight?")    Tuesday morning, I called a friend who had to come into town for work, so she could take me to the Heart of Texas Memorial Hospital, Brady, Texas. On the way, a call was placed to my pastor. Upon my arrival, Lyndy, the ebullient desk nurse, was taken aback: she didn't get a whole lot of heart attack walk-ins.    Applying the cuff, she "clocked" my blood pressure at 226/186, which is pretty much the medical equivalent of blowing through a school zone at 80 mph.    I recall an IV being started. Thankfully it wasn't "curtains" though it was definitely, "Goodnight, Nurse."  A groggy state of consciousness was reached around 1:30 p.m. I remember eating a sandwich and  making a passing comment to my nurse about Jesus "reclining at table." Later a friend helped me fill out the menu for the next two meals. She advised the roast pork for supper and it was very tasty.    Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I was attended by Ronnie, Tammie, Brenda, Bertha and other dedicated care givers on Shannon's staff. I saw a couple people I recognized, including His Grace, Bishop Michael Pfieffer, OMI.    Thursday evening, being deemed stable enough to move, I was transferred to a room on the fourth floor, since ICU had a bed crunch. I always wondered what it would be like to take part in a "fly-by-night" operation - and now I know.    Meeting Glory and Molly on fourth floor, I put on my sleep mask and went beddy-bye. The staff commented that I wasn't the typical Intensive Care patient, meaning I talked ... extensively and coherently.    During the course of the weekend I was privileged to meet Katy, Cody, Judith, Rosa, Olga, Rachel, Kacci and Ashe. Also Mallory and Felipa from dietary services and Paige, Abigail, Laura, Brandon and Alma.    Saturday, I put on a pair of jeans and went for a stroll, commenting, "Wearing the latest in semi-invalid wear..." During Monday's stroll, I sang, "She's a walkin', talkin', party doll." I like to think they'll miss the entertainment value.    Around 4:45 Saturday morning I met Darlene, whom I shall evermore call "Vampira." She was an engaging, gnome-like woman who came in to draw blood. Apparently it was good for her, as she came back 12 hours later and did it again. She and I had compatible humors. She said it was time to feed the bats and I said they must have developed a taste for "Hemo-Lite" seeing how I was down from a 16 hemoglobin count to an eight.    Brandon, a 29-year-old RN, reminded me a lot of my son and became a personal favorite. We shared a similar sense of humor, too.    An endoscopy and colonoscopy were scheduled to determine source of blood loss. Drinking that four-liter bottle of electrolyte solution was perhaps the worst trial of the whole ordeal. Then I was NPO (nothing to eat or drink) after midnight Sunday. The procedure did not take place until almost 2:45 p.m. Monday.    I met Laura, one the neatest people, who understood my warped sense of humor. We sang bits and pieces from Rocky Horror Picture Show. What a gas!    Speaking of gas, she told me one of the medications I would be receiving would have an amnesiac effect. I asked, "Like the neuralizer thing on Men In Black?" "Yeah," she said, "like that."   Tuesday morning, a new set of student nurses came onto the floor, among them were Edwina, Sara and Jacqueline.    Finally, around 2:30 p.m, Brenda, the RN had my dismissal papers ready. She went over the list of new meds, side effects and all that. I said, "I can just see me finally starting to date and we get romantic. He'll be asking, 'Baby, did the earth just move?' and I'll be saying, 'I thought it was my nitro pill kicking in'." The nurses laughed and Brenda left to get the requisite wheelchair.    I was given the go-ahead to remove the telemetry heart monitoring patches and wires. Stepping out of Room 469 one last time, I exclaimed, "Live, from Shannon's fourth floor, it's JoAnn Dalgard - unplugged!" Brenda rolled her eyes and told me to get in the wheelchair.    Jacqueline and Edwina came along. The chair was parked at the curb, I gave hugs all around and got into Debbie's car. We hit the street around three o'clock and stopped at a drive-thru' to get drinks.     Later I learned my friend Fr. Chris Roque had stopped to visit, missing me by about a half hour.    Got back to Brady and attended Cursillo reunion group, where everyone was surprised, loving and very welcoming. My friend Debbie took on the role of nursemaid, keeping me at her house until Friday. She would have kept me longer, but I felt ready to sleep in my own bed.    Though afflicted with post-procedural anemia, exacerbated by anti-occlusion medication, my overall experience was positive. Please feel free to take my word for it - Shannon Medical Center is a great hospital. You don't have to go finding out for yourself.    A couple words of caution, if you are at all sensitive about your age, leave that inhibition at home: the only one who did not ask me to verify my date of birth upon entering the room was Alma the housekeeper. Secondly, if you want to sleep in the dark, take a sleep mask.    If a hospital stay is in your foreseeable future, I hope you find excellent care and comfort are readily available.       Stay healthy. If you must go to the hospital, I hope it's to visit someone else.

***

[September 2019]

   Since 2010, I have had to get a cardiologist's 'go-ahead' for surgery: from December 2017-June 2018, I have endured four major surgeries, in pursuit of walking straight. I can now do over two miles; my year-end goal, is to walk at least three. Having just reviewed a comprehensive blood panel with my cardiologist, I am confident of making it.

Too big to fail; or too big to manage?

   As you see, this has been updated before. Watching a video Facebook post on the eighteenth anniversary of the bombing of Twin Towers of World Trade Center, and as campaigning has already begun for the 2020 U.S. election, it seemed time to publish it yet again. The U.S. is not the only actor on the world stage: Boris Johnson is desperate to use any means possible to crash out of the European Union, and Benjamin Netanyahu wants to annex territory which is currently occupied by Palestine. Greed for wealth and power, turns people nasty.

*****

15 August, 2012
   This piece was originally written shortly after the 2008 election and, at that time, was titled "My *kingdom* for a political candidate with integrity!" Since United States politicians are in perpetual campaign mode, I have updated and modified it enough to make it timely. I hope registered voters will exercise the hard-won right to vote.

***

   I suppose that rhetoric comparable to the following will find its way to newspapers and magazines from now at least until Inauguration Day, and very possibly until the 2012 election. It will be variously disguised as political commentary, guest columns and letters to the editor. I may as well have my say.

   When someone asked how to spell "Barak," not being "up on Middle Eastern names"- I said, "the Hebrew spelling is B-A-R-A-K and  the Anglicized version includes a 'c'." I declined to further elucidate that the name means "lightning" or that the Barak of biblical mention was a soldier during the reign of Deborah. No use wasting my breath.
   When this person further opined they didn't know what the country had come to when people thought that a man named "Barack Hussein Obama" was the best man to lead America, I asked myself, "Does this person believe what they profess?" For months I had heard many of my Christian friends proclaim, "No matter who wins the election, God is in control!" Several of the people who stated that so firmly were avowed supporters of the Republican Party's candidate for the Office of the Presidency, John McCain. Furthermore, I believe they fully expected Sen. McCain to emerge victorious, because on more than one occasion I heard the sentiment "Even if Barack Obama wins" prefacing the "God is in control" statement.
   So, since an overwhelming majority of those who went to the polls chose to put forth the Democratic Party's candidate as President-elect, was the declamation "God is in control" a profession of faith or merely a sound bite?

   The calendar which sat on my desk at work had a quasi-philosophical statement at the top of each month's page. I hadn't noticed November's until the morning of the fifth when I read: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." That is exactly what the American people did in the 2008 election - invented the future.
   I hope and pray that we are prepared to handle our invention and only time will tell what this decision bodes for the nation.

   But, just as a person rarely succeeds or fails all alone, neither does one person run the entire country unaided or unadvised. Our system of checks and balances curtails the limits of one person's power. And so it should be.

   Undoubtedly, the winds of political change are blowing with a minimum of gale-force velocity - but it takes a good stiff breeze when one is trying to winnow out the chaff. I proposed, more-or-less flippantly, that perhaps it was time to consider a triumvirate. We could take the [2008] Libertarian Barr, the Democrat Obama and the Republican Palin and name the trifold entity "BOP."

   It seems to me that as the size and demographics of this country have grown, shifted and evolved, it may be time to seriously contemplate moving the nation's capitol. After all, Washington, D.C. is as far removed from most people's reality as Washington State. (Probably more so.)
   It is an undoubtedly radical proposition, but what if the country were divided into rough quarters? The Northwest would comprise Alaska south to Oregon, then jog over to Colorado and Utah, (can't have California in the Northwest Territory), going as far east as the Dakotas and encompassing Wyoming, Iowa and the expansive plains of the Wheat Belt.
   Hawaii, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas would constitute the Southwest. From Minnesota south to Kansas, then eastward to the Atlantic seaboard and inclusive of the New England states would be Northeast, leaving the Gulf Coast states and Missouri, Georgia and the Carolinas to be the Southeast. [This is a think-piece, not a geography test; I know I did not name each state individually, but I'm sure most of you get the drift.]
   Each section of the country could elect a governor, which would in effect add four more people to the chain of command and hopefully put the president in closer touch with more of the people. The nation's capitol might be headquartered in Kansas which is pretty much the midpoint of the contiguous forty-eight. Compromise is all about middle ground and shades of gray.

   With regard to the election, it is way past time for the media to expand its coverage of all the candidates. The Libertarian Party has emerged as, if not "a force to be reckoned with," at least as an entity worthy of our consideration.
   Considering how important the position of President is, there should be more of a choice. In reality there is more of a choice, but that is not well publicized. Robert L. Barr Jr., the 2008 Libertarian candidate appeared on many ballots. There was also a line for write-ins, but I would surmise that many Americans were not even aware of their existence, much less their names. The rest of the world at large, is more aware of the candidates and consequences than many U.S.citizens.
   For the record, the other announced candidates for the Office of President of the United States of America in the 2008 election were Cynthia Ann McKinney, Charles O. Baldwin and Ralph Nader. At least a lot folks have heard of Ralph.
   There is also a joke concerning why there are 50 contestants for Miss America and only two for President. [The punch line has something to do with the swimsuit contest.] As has been noted, there are more than two candidates for President. Maybe we should look into having a First Runner-up? Another option might be to not link the vice presidential candidate to the top dog. Perhaps they should appear on separate lines of the ballot? Mix-and-match might make things interesting.
   I cannot understand those people who do not vote. How dare they toss aside such a hard-won privilege? Yes, it is in many ways unthinkable to ponder the sacrifices and atrocities endured to procure the right to vote. However, if we don't think about it from time to time, we are apt to forget, leaving ourselves in danger of losing this freedom.

   The text messages and jokes which abound may help to allay the fears, disappointments and resentments of those who send and tell them. One I heard was, "If the Founding Fathers had known it  would come to this, they'd have picked their own cotton." 

   Maybe they would have. Would have done them good. Or, at the very least, they should have paid a living wage. People are not property.
   Perhaps their short-term intent was to keep women, persons of color and those they deemed of inferior social status out of the world of politics and decision making. It seems there are those who still want to keep [some of] the rest of us "enslaved" and "in our place."
   I choose to believe and fervently hope the long-range vision included what I heard as a child, "Any kid born in America can grow up to be the President."

   Therefore, even if you are disappointed with the 2008 outcome, if you took the time to cast your ballot, be proud.  If you are among those who decided it wasn't worth your time or effort, you should be ashamed. Please encourage all eligible persons to register to vote in upcoming elections. Apathy is the death of democracy.
   As the United States approaches another election day, it is imperative its citizens do not give way to apathy.

   When Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of stew he at least had a full belly. If you have the opportunity to vote and do not, you are selling out. And what have you got to show for the price you pay?