The spinners in the White House are starting to perspire. Support for health care might actually expire. Limbaugh’s mouth is on fire. He says Pelosi is a liar. He’d like to make her retire. Obama tries to inspire but he’s just preaching to the choir. How much support does his plan really require? His critics say the deficit will only go higher and cash for clunkers is no spare tire.

I’m just watching like a bird on a wire. A see a sharp knife in a quagmire. An innocent girl continues to aspire…With no insurance or fear, she only has desire.

You can see more photos by Mountain Dude at: www.dporterdvd.com

This is something that’s been bugging the shit out of me for well most of my life. Old people who think that because they’ve lived 75+ years that a you know everything, that young people today especially teen don’t know jack shit and this is the one that because your my elder i should automatically respect you. Have news for yah I’ll wait while you turn up your hearing aid and scoot your hoverround closer. Respect is earned not given away.

Now let me first start off by saying this doesn’t mean all old people fall into everything I’m talking about but all of you fall into at least one.

Lets start off with two groups of people that are almost identical teens vs old people. These two groups of people are so alike it’s actually funny here’s some examples Old people hate everything because it’s not like it was back then. Teens hate everything because its not cool or its conformo. Both groups of people can run on surprisingly little sleep. Most of them are terrors on the road. Both seem to think they should get respect from the world Teen because they’re so close to adulthood and old people because they’ve been in adulthood so long. Both groups have loads of disposable cash. In fact the only real difference between the two is teens have they’re over protective parents and watchdog congress looking over them and old people have they’re over protective children and watchdog congress looking over them.

Now let’s go another group of old people that make me want to grind my teeth. The ones that resist saying how lazy kids today are. That all they do is leech off their parents they don’t know the value of a real day’s work. Well snowtop you do know that most teens have a part-time job I mean just because you spent 90 hours in the sun drenched tomato fields doesn’t mean the kids of today don’t work. I mean who in the hell thinks serves you your egg Mcmuffin.  One last thing about leeching off of something Social Security and Medicare.

Now on to the ones that really give other seniors a bad name. The ones that think because they’re old they can act anyway they want. Like the one that yells at the semi-mentally handicapped person bagging they’re groceries because they screwed up and put bread on the bottom. Yet this same senior would laugh and chuckle if her granddaughter put bread on the bottom. I have news for you the two people that bagged your items have about the same mental capacity. Or the ones that go to McDonalds and complain about the egg being to hard. Didn’t they realize when they walked in the door where they were and that quality had left the Golden Arches a long time ago. Or when they starts hassling a complete stranger because he wore his baseball cap inside the dinning room of TGI Fridays.

Is it any wonder why I say to seniors you want respect give respect.

Well I think that’s were I’m going to end this post I’ll probably write on about the other end of the spectrum. Yet another group of people that I can do with out TEENS

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L6pDyjqqsvY/Sl4Y4sr5fGI/AAAAAAAAc04/GcLzEjOYTac/s1600-h/healthcare+map.JPG

Yep, that title is correct, back to work. Being a retired electrician with 35 years experience in the construction industry, those three words have special meaning to me. First, a little background. I wrote, and sold, my first magazine article in 1973 to Old West magazine on the Death Valley Borax wagons. It was an interesting subject and I have since sold that same article, with some rewriting, nine times over the years bringing in over $1500. I’ve also written a piece on slot machines, honey bees, San Jose, California’s Winchester Mystery House, electrical subjects, parenting, raising teenagers, my experiences during the Vietnam War (and it was a war, not a conflict), windmills, fishing, hunting (I eat what I catch or kill), lost gold mines and just interesting characters and subjects. I’ve gone from pounding away on a typewriter (those antique machines that actually used a ribbon) to a computer.

Several years ago, I had an episode of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder, something brought back from Vietnam) that almost killed me, literally. The shrink I went to couldn’t figure out why I’d be having flashbacks after all these years and I went on Prozac, or something similar, and my writing suffered. I couldn’t concentrate long enough to finish anything, after several pages my mind would wander and I’d lose track of what I was doing. I’d sit for hours in front of the screen and not touch a key, just stare. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t remember what I was thinking about and this didn’t help with the shrink sessions. Again, unfortunately, this carried over to my driving. I’d start out just to drive to the grocery store and end up a hundred miles away and not remember getting there. Now that was scary and I knew something had to be done before I hurt myself.

It wasn’t the shrink who came up with a cure, he was more interested in grabbing his paycheck from the VA than helping veterans, but my inner voice. No, I’m not crazy but that’s open to interpretation. I figured the only one who knew me best was best qualified to diagnose my problems — myself. So what did I do? I went fishing for a week, packed my truck, grabbed a couple boxes of worms and found myself a secluded spot to be by myself. It was high up in the Rocky Mountains, off the beaten path (I have four-wheel drive truck), set up my tent by the water and tossed in a line. I spent a week catching trout, cooking them over an open fire, drinking beer (something I hadn’t done in ages) and began to sort out my life (you don’t need to be a teenager to do that).

I figured out that I was in a rut with my life, I wasn’t doing anything but feeling sorry for myself for getting older but not necessarily wiser. I’d lost my retirement through a faulty investment firm, all $165,000 of it, am now living on a small pension and Social Security and living with my daughter. I had become that which I had always despised, dependent on someone else. Okay, I didn’t have a lot of money, so what could I do about it. I couldn’t return to work, my body has been beat up too much and wouldn’t take it. I’m not one to set up a scam on the Internet and rip people off. That left one avenue open to me, return to my writing. I’m still on anti-depressants and mood-changing chemicals but I’m much better for having that talk with myself, I now know where I’m going and how to get there.

I now devote three hours a day to writing, anything just to get words down on paper, or screen. I’m exploring new subjects, making a list of things I’m fairly knowledgeable about and researching potential markets. It still takes me a while to finish a project but at least I’m finishing it now. I’m also posting blogs in order not only to help myself but others as well, just maybe my experiences will help someone else get through life. Let me tell you, getting old isn’t for sissies. It takes determination and perseverance to get up in the morning and check the obituaries to see if my name in in there. It isn’t? Then it’s going to be a good day and I sit down to write, like this morning. Just maybe, someone will read this and tell themselves that their life isn’t so bad after all.

Wish I could invite my dad over to my house for Father’s Day and celebrate. I sure would like to Bar-B-Q him some steak or salmon. Whatever he might want. Unfortunately, it’s impossible for us to get together.

He was my first hero. I’ll never forget the day he took me and my sister to the beach and someone started drowning. In a flash, my dad ran and dove into the ocean. He quickly pulled this guy out and saved his life. A crowd of people had gathered. Everyone was so glad the guy lived. I wonder if this experience had anything to with me becoming a lifeguard later in life.

During summers, my dad took us kids camping at fantastic places like Yellowstone and Sequoia National Park. I wonder if this had anything to do with me eventually getting a job with the U.S. Forest Service or living next to a national forest today.

As an LAPD officer, Dad patrolled South Central L.A. for 20 years. He had a tough, dangerous job dealing with street gangs but Dad was very macho. He totally bought into that whole Marlboro man image the tobacco companies sell so well. Seemed like he always had a cigarette going. I first started smoking when I was 16. I wonder if my dad’s smoking had anything to do with it.

When my dad got emphysema, I realized smoking had serious, unpleasant consequences. One day, when I was working in my photo studio in Hollywood, I set up a modeling mirror and took a good look at myself with a cigarette dangling from my lips (in that classic James Dean style). With my father’s emphysema situation on my mind, I didn’t look very “cool” to myself anymore. Actually, I thought I looked butt faced stupid - Like my face was really grotesque and there was a cigarette being smoked in my butt crack. How disgusting!

It was time to quit. I found out quitting was easier said than done. In fact, quitting smoking was the hardest thing I’ve ever struggled with. I really liked smoking. I liked having a cup of coffee and a smoke, a beer and a smoke, a smoke after a great meal, a smoke after great sex, driving and smoking. Heck - anything and smoking. But it was just too unhealthy and I especially didn’t like looking stupid to people who didn’t smoke. Many times when I was trying to quit, I would smoke the last cigarette of a pack and tell myself, “I’m not buying another pack.” Then at 2:30 a.m., I would find myself lying in bed desperate for a cigarette. Unable to sleep, I would climb out of bed and rummage through my trash cans until I found a butt to light. What an ordeal. Eventually, I did quit, but it was the hardest damn thing I’ve ever done. Today, I have much sympathy for anyone who is addicted to nicotine and all of the mysterious, toxic chemicals the greedy tobacco companies add to natural tobacco to make cigarettes extra addictive and maximize sales.

I was still working in Hollywood when my friend Debbie was trying to get gigs as a stand-up comedian. I offered to help her brainstorm for her comedy routines and she promised to do some modeling for me. We had fun kicking around some comedy stuff over a few gin and tonics. Then I told her about the humorous photo concepts I wanted her to consider working on as a model. For one idea, I described how I thought people’s faces look like dumb-ass butts when they put a cigarette in their little, face hole. Perhaps this could be a humorous “No Smoking” poster or greeting card. LOL - Debbie said she didn’t want to do any ass modeling, especially because her butt had too much cellulite. I reassured her that her butt would be fine because I wanted my image to be the opposite of the sexy tobacco company ads. When Debbie realized she would be able to recount this unusual modeling experience for a funny stand up bit, she became much more enthusiastic. Debbie even called her best friend who immediately volunteered to come down to my studio and assist with cigarette placement during the photo shoot.

To all you smokers out there, If you can’t quit, I hope you at least cut down and minimize the damage. I know how hard it is because I’ve been there. I’m not trying to put anybody down who chooses to smoke. I’m just saying, for your sake and the sake of your family, I hope you don’t end up like my dead father… weak, sick, hooked up to an oxygen tank suffering a slow, unpleasant, untimely death.

You can see more photos by Mountain Dude at www.dporterdvd.com

The power of prayer to cure illness has been in the news lately and is the second part in my rant on alternative treatments. Now I don’t care if you believe in a God or not, I’m not writing this to question anyone’s belief. I’m just questioning when people don’t get the treatment they need because they think a higher power will make them well.

To start if you’re sick and you want to pray that you’ll get better go right ahead. Or if you have a friend who’s sick and you want to pray for their recovery go ahead. However if you start getting sicker or your illness won’t go away in ten days take yourself to the doctor. If you have something like arthritis or diabetes feel free to pray all you want. Just consult a medical professional in conjunction with your prayer regiment.

I’ll give an example of this a Wisconsin woman is now convicted of second degree reckless homicide involving her daughter. Her daughter had diabietes an easily controled condition trough insulin. However this woman belived that the body got sick as a result of sin. So instead of taking her daughter to the doctor she formed a prayer circle and the prayed around the little girl. Anyway she had to pass out before anyone called 911 by then it was to late to do anything.

People it’s great if you want to trust your eternal soul to God. But while your here with your mortal life can you at least listen to a doctor.

Now lets be clear I’m not ragging on alternative treatments, IF THEY WORK! If you have strep throat and willow bark clears it up great however if you are still sick after three days it might be time to look at a more traditional treatment because the herbs or viatamins aren’t working. Also if you do elect alternative treatments make sure you see a professional and not make your decisions by reading a book you got at Borders.

You know I swear to God I don’t know what in the hell is wrong with a majority of people these days. I’ll give you two examples.

I’m not sure if anyone outside MN knows but there’s a 13 year old boy that has Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. With treatment he has a 95% chance of survival. So after being diagnosed and getting a treatment plan set up he goes for his first round of treatment. Like most people how have Chemo he got sick. After seeing their son in such a state the parents and the kid decided on no more Chemo instead opting for a natural holistic approach. Just so you know without Chemo the kid’s survival chances drop to around 5%.

So the kids docs try to force him into to treatment with a court order. He and his family respond by saying that it’s against his religious belief system to have Chemo. I believe he said “I want to meet my creator with a clean body and having Chemo would make me unclean” And the natural methods involved little more than willow bark and ginger tea from what I gathered in the paper. So after a court fight the judge ordered the kid into treatment. He ordered a X Ray be taken to see if the natural remedies had any effect and a new Chemo plan be drawn up. He also stipulated that the Chemo would be in conjunction with a natural regiment as well. He ended the hearing by saying to the boy “You may not think you’re that sick and you don’t look sick but trust me you are very very sick”

The doctors were comprised of six oncologist 3 pediatricians and even acupuncturists and herbalists that all said the same thing “The kid needs treatment natural remedies are not going to do it”.  The Parents and the kid had almost nothing concrete to offer except for religious beliefs. Oh and a public outcry of support which left my mouth hanging open. Thousands of people with signs that said “Say no to Drugs” and “Natural remedies work” touting personnel freedoms and patient rights and parental rights in deciding what’s best for their kids. Did any of these people bother to look at the medical evidence.

Now if the kid was an adult I’d have no problem with him refusing treatment. It’d be his personnel right to refuse Chemo against all logic. But he’s not an adult and his parents are basing their decision on fear and a desire not to see their son suffering. Well sometimes you have to go through hell to get better. Well anyway the X Ray was taken and guess what the cancer’s grown back to it’s original size and is still expanding. What amazes me is even with all this there are still people that are pissed about the judge decision to save the kids life.

They constantly write into the paper or call in on talk shows. Saying that the judge is evil and wrong and should not have interfered with “A very private decision” Or they still say that nature has all the cures he needs. Well nature had it’s shot and it failed it’s time for man made western medicine to take over. There is nothing wrong with taking herbs or vitamins for simple things. Like if you have stomach problems feel free to take a herbal tea. If you have a cold take some vitamin C, If you can’t sleep chew on some Valerian root or have a beer. But if you have something like lets say Bronchitis take the penicillin.

Anyway I’ll write the other example later

Warcorpse

PS if you do take herbs make sure you talk to a herbalist before you. Some of the deadliest poisons on earth are a combination of herbs and plants.

I was going to flame off about the ridiculous Hauser (cancer kid) chase but it’s too infuriating. Honestly, if I had cancer, or if my children did, I’d be heading to Mexico as well - there’s a Cancer Treatment Center down there and I’d give that a shot before I blasted myself (or my kids) with chemo. Chemo kills everything. If you’re lucky, you’ll survive. People die from chemo on a regular basis.

Oops wait a minute. I wasn’t going to flame off. So I’m so sick of news, and people and stupidity and fucking everything human (almost) because we’re so pathetically fucked up. We’re hopelessly ignornat - that’s all there is to it. Damn there I go again.

So, for a change ( a real change - not Obama’s BS) I went on a hike to my MOST favorite place in the world, with my daughters and check it out. We missed this little guy the first time past, but the second time I just happened to look down and what an incredible suprise! I’ve seen a lot of really cool shit hiking, experienced some amazing things camping, but I’ve never seen such a pretty little thing as this. (hope this uploads ok; if not I’ll put it on my website)

Sorry; this is a terrible thing to do. (post something without saying anything) But I don’t have time to write - have to mow my lawn before someone here shoots me

Anwways, this website (links below) is worth checking out. It’s  a wealth of information for anyone who bothers to look beyond anything.

http://www.searchlores.org/   <—the website

http://www.searchlores.org/swansong.htm  <—the man who started it.

http://www.searchlores.org/realicra/realicra.htm  <—a particularly nice place with a particularly interesting piece on slavery and supermarkets…

http://www.searchlores.org/realicra/slaves.htm <—interesting

Sometimes it’s nice to take a break from the regular stupid shit that we are constantly inundated with. Any of the above links will take you out of stupid mode for a while, incase you need a break.

I’d like to *link* some of the comments he made in his “swansong” (above link) to some of my opinions about the fucked up medical industry in the usa, the piece-of-shit pharmeceudical industry ( biggest drug cartel in the world) which is really running this country (in my own ignorant, illiterate , unresearched opinion), The bastard judge in Minneapolis who, in a court ruling tookaway the rights of the parents of Daniel Hauser to chose their sons medical treatment (for his cancer - do they have insurance? I wonder…who’s paying for that ruling? and what will this ruling be a precident for?) and the dumb ass people in general who allow themselves to be lead by the nose,  questioning nothing…but, like I said, I have to mow my lawn…

I may not look it, not fit the profile, but deep within me beats the heart of a rabid football fan. Don’t let my affection for Jane Austen books and goat cheese fool you, I mark time by training camp, preseason, regular season, and off season. After the Superbowl and Pro Bowl, I go into a football withdrawal marked by generalized depression and loss of interest in life in general until the NFL Draft in the spring. And the object of all my affection is the Minnesota Vikings. What can I say, I love not too wisely, but too well.

So today, on May 14, 2009, my soul is on edge. Too melodramatic? Okay, I’m apprehensive. The fate of the famed Williams Wall is on the line in court today and I’m desperately trying to understand why the hell no one thought to organize a candlelight vigil for them last night.

Today the StarCaps saga that started when several NFL players tested positive for bumetanide last summer, is hitting another milestone (a.k.a. the fan) as they argue in a hearing in St. Paul. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that Judge Paul Magnuson rules in favor of the players.

Last season Vikings fans held their collective breath and feared the worst when it came out that Pat and Kevin Williams, our Pro Bowl defensive linemen, tested positive for a banned substance that is associated with masking steroids. The Williams boys and three players from the New Orleans Saints were slapped with a four game suspension by the league and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell preened like he was a bad-ass mamba-jamba, talking about the league’s zero tolerance policy for steroids and related substances. Bumetanide, associated with masking steroids in drug tests, was found in the players’ drug tests and they were guilty.

More than once I found myself whining “Say it ain’t so!” and saw my team’s season swirl down the crapper. The affable, hard-working Williamses were dopers. It was like a veil had been drawn over the sun. But I had underestimated the umbrage and tenacity of the Williams Wall–and just how screwy the whole scandal was. Kevin and Pat Williams were determined to clear their names. Not known for caving under pressure (as anyone who saw their brilliant goal-line stand in their home game against Chicago last year can testify) they felt they were in the right and decided to fight for their reputations. They claimed they took StarCaps to lose weight and had no idea that bumetanide was one of the ingredients. Had they known that the supposedly all-natural StarCaps contained a banned substance they would not have taken them. However, since the league knew and did not tell the players, it was on.

I have gleefully imagined that moment when Roger Goodell, at home reclining in a leather chair and swirling brandy in a Waterford snifter to the strains of Mozart, finds out that the linemen lawyered up and are going to fight their suspension. In my fantasy version of this revelation, Goodell throws the snifter into his fireplace in a fit of rage, and storms around shouting about how they are just big, dumb linemen and who do they think they are coming after him. They’re linemen, they’re supposed to do what I say! However, that is just the work of my overactive imagination. More likely, Goodell had to know this would be messy.

And, so far, it hasn’t disappointed. Shoot, this is the legal equivalent of some good, old-fashioned mud-wrestling. St. Paul judge Paul Magnuson gave the players a temporary injunction that enabled them to finish their season, a season that saw my Vikings on top of their division for the first time in a long time. The Vikings’ success was made possible in large part by a defensive line that was one of the stingiest in the league against the run. Now that the season is over Pat and Kevin Williams are back in court to hash it out and prepare for trial.

Having avidly read about this from the start, I’m really hoping that the NFL gets smacked and it isn’t just because my imagination conjured up a snide Roger Goodell in a smoking jacket as the villan. The NFL knew, KNEW, that StarCaps had bumetanide in them as early as November 2006 despite the fact that bumetanide was not listed anywhere in the ingredients. Dr. Brian Finkle, an NFL toxicologist, discovered the bumetanide present in StarCaps and had toxicologist Dennis Crouch of the University of Utah further test StarCaps for the presence of bumetanide. The findings showed that not only was bumetanide present, it was in concentrations high enough to meet or exceed the prescribed dosage.

This is the part that I found especially interesting—bumetanide is prescribed by doctors to patients with congestive heart failure and renal disease. We’re not talking about a caffeine tablet here, we’re talking about a prescription drug with serious side-effects used to treat life-threatening disease. I realize that I’m not a toxicologist or a physician, but it seems to me that when you discover that a popular weight-loss supplement, claiming to be natural, is spiked with dangerously high levels of a prescription drug, that is the kind of thing that should be made known to players, not in vague, broad, nonspecific language, but specifically and explicitly. Anything less seems like gross negligence with regard to player safety. That’s right, this is a matter of player safety so the league’s bitchy little line about it being the players’ responsibility to know what they were putting in their bodies seems waspish and petty—especially when there was no way for the players to know the supplement contained bumetanide. After all, it isn’t as if bumetanide was on the label, or players who called the league hotline were told not to take StarCaps because they contained bumetanide, or the league made the research they had about StarCaps containing bumetanide available to the players.

So today I’m thinking of Pat and Kevin Williams and I’m admiring just was how gutsy they were to tell the NFL exactly what they could do with that four-game suspension. It would have been so much easier to quietly take a suspension and put this all behind them, but they felt that their reputation was more valuable. Go Pat and Kevin!

* Facts for this post were taken from articles in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Brian Murphy is brilliant.