END of LIFE ISSUES

Recently I took a much dreaded trip back East to visit my brother, seriously ill with congestive heart failure. Pretty ominous sounding but treatable, mainly a diet sans sodium. My brother looked awful. Mostly, he had lost so much weight. He knew me, we reminisced, he was pretty weak. I became his caregiver for a couple of days. Helping him get to the bathroom, in and out his wheelchair. Quite the experience. As I sat there the better part of a couple of days, I had go think, "What has brought us to this point?" He's 85, always been incredibly robust. He has been the patriarch of our family, always there for all of us: a retired school superintendent and then into farming. He loved it. 

Our brother has done it all, a Marine on Guadalcanal, school teacher, principal and superintendent. Successful author across genres: He is the challenge man. He has faced them and made them work. 

But, my brother is sick. Health is a challenge that is out of his hands. Time to go? I don't think so. I had come to say goodbye but after being with him for a short time, I'm thinking he can rebound. Returned to his once energetic self. No. A couple of more years with reasonable quality. I think so.

There is always a certain projection with an experience like with my brother: what does this say to me? My brother had no plans to deal with a serious illness. Where to go? Caretakers? What is available? If you are someone like my brother or me for that matter, how can you let your personality get out of the way.i. e., you can say to my brother, how are you? He will teply, "I am great." (his personality--he has always been superman). He is not great and all must recognize it. For myself, should something happen to me, (Well, if I made it to 85, not bad so I could go with it). I would want to be somewhere where people could visit, like VA or some facility. But, my nature is that I would not want anybody interfering with their own schedule. For them to want to "wait" on me would simply add to the issues of my being sick.  I do not want other peoples' lives impacted because of my illness. So what to do? Make plans ahead of time. Write it out. Make sure that plans are in place. Can I do it? Will I do it?

YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO

Anybody who thinks the Supreme Court Justices aren't driven by politics, raise your hand. You have got to be kidding me. The so called conservative justices always vote the same way on hot button issues. If you listen to testimony, sometimes they disguise it but most of the time they don't. It really is a sham, I think. I tell you one of the things that really gets me. Where the f..k are all these people who have benefitted from the law. The parents, over a million of them, who have college age kids who can stay on the parents insurance until they are 26. Why aren't these people raising hell with those opposing the plan. I am no apologist for the health care bill but it at least appears to be an effort to rein in unwieldy costs, make health care affordable, an even more ethical. (I heard yesterday that some doctors order5 lots of scans. Why? They have invested in the scans and consequently the more they order, the more money they make). Damned if I get it. As a disclaimer, I have VA and Tricare and hell, anyway? as I understand it, over 60% of Americans are in some government insurance anyway. So, what is the damn outcry. I think that for some weird reasons, the politicians have made this such an issue that zealots are on board. (don't confuse me with facts, I have my mind made up). In thinking about it, "What would I get so fired up that I am out protesting?" Damn if it would be to repeal something like the Health Care law. Now, the Travon Martin shooting. I can get that: blatant injustice but health care. Come on! Do these people really hate the president this much and trying to disguise it with opposition to the Health Care Initiative, i.e., if they get this repealed, they defeat the president. What kind of thinking is that? F..king crazy.

HEALTH MANDATE

I have about heard enough. I think the courts will probably strike the "mandate" down. It sounds too UN American. Nobody is going to tell us what to do! At least not those hard headed types who don't have health insurance or those who don't think about it. I asked some thirty something at my gym about health insurance. He shrugged and said, "I never even think about it." He's healthy, in shape--he's invulnerable. And, there's an entire segment of the population that depends on emergency room health care. They are mostly the working poor, homeless, immigrants, and others that I can't even name. And who pays? We do.

The Movie, Separation

Every American ought to see this movie. It won the Best Foreign Picture at the Academy Awards. Watching it seemed that it lasted five hours but just two. Mainly the issues were so heavy and the Iranian legal system so different. I guess it was Sharia or Islamic law. Amazing. How to even explain this picture almost defies explanation. It started out with something akin to a divorce proceeding. Wife wanted to leave the country. Husband saying no, will not leave his Alzheimer's father.. A teenage daughter who will not leave the father.  Complicated to the max. The movie starts out in one direction but goes in an entirely different one. Withoit revealing too much and spoiling the movie (although to be perfectly honest, I don't think it is possible to reveal too much because the movie can't be described, only seen), let me say that it is truly worthy of the Oscar. I am going to see the others to compare. Caring and concerned Americans with even a smidgen of a world view would do well to see the movie. The Iranians struggle like us all. The sadness, the human drama: a pregnant woman, desperate to survive takes a cleaning job and as  caretaker for an alzheimers father. No training, ignorance and an adherence  to the basic rules of fundentalist Islam, is both perplexing and revealing. The mysteries of it all combined with not  lies so much as opposed to not telling everything. A trip through the legal system. Wow. Excellent acting. I give up on describing, go see.

Rush LIMBALLS

I've heard and seen some sorry ass apologies but Limbaughs takes the cake. If I was the law student, I would accept the fact that my "fifteen minutes of fame" is going to last a long, long time and so why not go with it. Sue the s..t out of Limbaugh, the people he works for, the janitor, any and everybody; think of it as practice for a newly minted lawyer. It could be her career. There's probably a platoon of shyster lawyers standing outside her door, ready to help her. The only way to  touch a guy like Limbaugh is to hurt him or his bosses in the coin of the realm. At least wound him: People quit listening, sponsors leave. Suddenly the asshole is a liability.

I don't know s..t about the process but this makes sense to me. Every woman in America ought to be up in arms. Finally, I will have to say this: I don't pay attention to the "shoulters" regardless so mine is just opinion. If I personally had to deal with an a..hole like Limbaugh, I would say, f..k you and the horse you rode in on. Sorry Mom for my language.

MARCHING TOWARD WAR

My Dad had this typical Southern view of the Jews: anybody who f..ks with the Jews will eventually get zapped. Without dissecting that view, I'm going with it with reservations, i.e., Iran.  However, what I'm seeing now is the same song, unfortunatelysecond verse. And, it appears that the President is falling into the trap. Iran has got to be contained: how to do it is a challenge. I have great faith that we can figure it out. We are smart. What we can't be is stupid like we were with Iraq and weapons of mass destruction which proved not to exist. We f..ked up but would never admit it. So here we find ourselves maching toward war again. Goated into it by Israel and to some degree, the Republicans who are reproccessed neocons, sorry f..kers who haven't had an original thought since Noah. They led George W into being stupid. Every Vietnam vet that I know who is cogitating his navel feels that Vietnam and all the lost American lives didn't count for s..t. We moved right ahead with our idiocy into Afghanistan and Iraq. Frankly, I honestly think that the American people who care (and not all do) are f..king tired of war. The country has change. Let's recognize that we cannot be the world's policement. Some hard choices here. One is that we have to tell Israel, "you start a war, your ass is on your own."

SADDENED

Nobody that I know is not saddened by what has happened by a deranged American soldier in Afghanistan. But, as the president says often, "let me be perfectly clear: this is war." As with all of Afghanistan, there is nothing that is not f..ked up. This is somewhat different but, despite the rosey reports which are so much bullshit or with lofty ideas of strategy which is equally stupid, we have a system which gives Americans, regardless of how awful the crime, their day in court.

A CRAZY SOLDIER-SNAPPED

Nobody that I know is not saddened by what has happened by a deranged American soldier in Afghanistan. But, as the president says often, "let me be perfectly clear: this is war." As with all of Afghanistan, there is nothing that is not f..ked up. This is somewhat different but, despite the rosey reports which are so much bullshit or with lofty ideas of strategy which is equally stupid, we have a system which gives Americans, regardless of how awful the crime, their day in court.

GET THE F..K OUT OF AFGHANISTAN

Listening to the SECDEF who was in Afghanistan to assure them that we're hanging in there, my first thought was "what planet are these people on?" I guess it is politics but pretty discouraging to me. In short, the SSG who killed innocents snapped, plain and simple. As disheartening and tragic as it is, this incident is not the problem but should be the catalyst for getting the f..k out of Afghanistan. There are many issues that bring us to this point.
Part of it has been in how we have promoted the success of the All Volunteer Army. I believe the Army is somewhat broken: Repetitive tours, the way wars are fought now, easy assess to family back home. The inequities of combat, infantry soldiers carrying the burden, a strategy that might work if we stayed in Afghanistan a hundred years. Should I go on.

One of the big problems as I see it: there is no political capital to be gained by leaving Afghanistan NOW. The President has a timetable, the Repubs don't want to be seen as "lite" on war. Gingrich did say, "time to leave" but he can't seem to get any traction. We are stuck. The rosy reports, the bowing and scraping to Karzai, who has only a fraction of the populace under his government--the multiple problems: drugs, Afghan riots and people wanting us out. The list is endless.

To me, there is no explanation on the SSG but he simply went crazy. It happens. And, one thing we can't deny: Fort Lewis/McChord appears to have been the focus of several missteps. Trouble before with the "kill" squads, accusations of less than sympathetic military doctors and a less than empathetic VA. It is time to get the f..k out of Afghanistan.

SEPARATION

Every American ought to see this movie. It won the Best Foreign Picture at the Academy Awards. Watching it seemed that it lasted five hours but just two. Mainly the issues were so heavy and the Iranian legal system so different. I guess it was Sharia or Islamic law. Amazing. How to even explain this picture almost defies explanation. It started out with something akin to a divorce proceeding. Wife wanted to leave the country. Husband saying no, will not leave his Alzheimer's father.. A teenage daughter who will not leave the father.  Complicated to the max. The movie starts out in one direction but goes in an entirely different one. Withoit revealing too much and spoiling the movie (although to be perfectly honest, I don't think it is possible to reveal too much because the movie can't be described, only seen), let me say that it is truly worthy of the Oscar. I am going to see the others to compare. Caring and concerned Americans with even a smidgen of a world view would do well to see the movie. The Iranians struggle like us all. The sadness, the human drama: a pregnant woman, desperate to survive takes a cleaning job and as  caretaker for an alzheimers father. No training, ignorance and an adherence  to the basic rules of fundentalist Islam, is both perplexing and revealing. The mysteries of it all combined with not  lies so much as opposed to not telling everything. A trip through the legal system. Wow. Excellent acting. I give up on describing, go see. 

SHORT STORY

"Oscar, this is going to be easy pickins." 
"I don't know, man, I ain't been into no robbin people nor stores." 
"OK, listen, Oscar, you stupid mother fucker, you ain't got nothng to jangle in your pocket, no coins to rub together and no pot to piss in. So, what chance you got. You ain't, mother fucker." Oscar shook his head. 
Bong was just getting warmed up. Bong got his name from carting water pipes and other dope smoking apparatus around. Want a pipe, Bong is your man. 
"You got an old lady who will be on your ass and a little one and teenager and no work. This is bout ten minutes. Nobody gets hurt and we can get some change. I'm telling  you, mother fucker." 
It did look simple. Service station, one attendant. 
"I don't know." Oscar watched this BMW pull into the station. "What the fuck," he smiles. "Look like those crackers got them a rider." Underneath the car something was dragging. Looked like two long steel pipes. This white guy gets out, on his knees struggling. "Hey,"  Oscar calls out, "just back over it." 
"Leave them be," Bong said. "Let their asses get gone." 
Oscar walked over to the car. "Let me see here." He knelt down. "Damn, this is a low slung car." 
"Yeah, I know. The only thing I don't like about it. A little struggle and Oscar stood with the object. "Well, I'll be, an old folks walker." I've seen it all now." He smiled. "A fine 'Beemer' overcome by an old folks walker.  

I am at the airport to retrieve my girlfriend. She has been to Omaha to visit her family. I know traffic is going to be a bitch: Friday night, I'm scared of the dark. It goes back to Vietnam. Everything happened at night. You sat around all day waiting and knowing that "Charles" as we called the Vietcong, was going to get your ass in the middle of the night. But, it is worth it all to see my girlfriend. I am like a teenager around her. I can't wait, my blood pressure is sky hight. I get lost going to the airport, a place I've been a thousand times.  I see her. It is like she has come back from Vietnam. We hug, kiss, crazy like. Finally make it to car, kiss, hug, touch. Finally get on the road. Run over something in the road. It hangs up under the car. Damn, what a time to have this happen! Can't get it out from under the car. Risk my life almost in traffic. Finally make it to a service station. Black guy yells over telling me to back over the two long aluminum pipes stuck under the car. He walks over, kneels down and wrestles the two pipes out from where they are lodged under the car, takes five minutes. "Thanks."
"No problem," he says as he walks away. On the spot I decide something,
I pull out my money clip. I only have hundreds. What the hell, I give him one. His eyes are big as saucers. He is so happy. "Bong I'm going home." 
"Oscar, you stupid fucker, you'll be sorry". 

Oscar makes his way toward home. The $100 is going to buy some groceries and give his teenager her lunch money. He stops at the bar. When he pays for his beer with the hundred, the bar keep  puts his marker over the hundred twice to see if it is real. "you are a lucky mother fucker."
"yeah, I am." 
Oscar yells as he comes in the door. His little one runs to him. Where is your Mom? He heard the TV. His wife is white as a sheet. "What'e Up?"
"Your friend Bong robbed a store and was killed by the police. "