Archive for May, 2009
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05.31.09
Picnic Today
Today was a super day for us. Started off with wife getting up real early and she made fresh rolls. Once they were done and buttered on top, packed them up when they cooled down a little bit and off to Des Moines we went.
First stop was to see Aunt Louise. She was awful tired and did not want to do anything. Had already told her daughter to forget taking her to the picnic. But wife said, you are getting your hair done right now to look spiffy. Wife worked on her hair and got it looking real nice. And of course it did perk up Aunt Louise a bit, but she still did not feel like going to the picnic. We figured it was because the evening before, she watched her favorite team since she was a girl. Yep, the Cubs were on at 7pm and she watched the entire game. And yep, the Cubs won, so she was happy.
So we left her and went to the park where the picnic was. Got there a bit early to set it up, I hauled a trash can from the tennis courts up the hill to the pavilion, we got the tables covered and taped down (bit breezy all day). With that breeze, it was not that bad at all, though the temp hit 84F.
Then everyone started showing up, bringing the food (the most important part of any picnic!). Once the food was set up for the line, our brother Mike said the prayer prior to the meal. Then it was chow time! And let me tell you, there was plenty of good pulled pork loin, salads, bread made by my wife, and lots of calorie laden desserts.
Quite a turn out, with a lot of the brothers and sisters, their kids, and their kids. So we had quite a visit with all the family. And I think my wife among others got plenty of pictures. Even my picture was taken! hahahahha
But all good things must come to an end and the picnic and the fun was over and everyone started saying goodbye, hugging one another, and one cousin got my wife to promise to come down to her place so we could get together and play some cards. Another cousin Jeff got my wife set up for a croquet rematch later this summer at the next family get together. The two of them go back and forth over who wins each year. And no, you would not want to get between those two when they start slinging mallets!
Tomorrow for sure, I do have to shovel out the garden of all the white rock and level it out for paving stones. The two huge hostas plants will finally get dug up for good and find a new home at our daughters’ place. Think the entire section of the garden will look great and the big wooden chair swing will stand out better.
Think we are going to get some rain now. I hear thunder!
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05.29.09
Health Care in Canada
Right now, our president, Barack H. Obama, has been proposing health care for ALL Americans. Which by the way, I am all for this! And a lot of people, of all stripes and of all political parties, are filling up the airwaves, the print media and the internet with a lot of misinformation, lies, graphs, and more. All to let everyone know that such a plan is too costly for the government, would not give all of us health care that we are used to paying for, and that ultimately it would be some faceless, nameless government bureaucrat who would decided if a person gets treatment or not. And of course, I have seen as you have a comparison with Canada, our neighbor to the north. Telling us all kinds of scare stories and more about our friends to the north when it comes to health treatment, etc.
So here is an article from an ezine I subscribe to. It is put out by Bob Osgoody and you can subscribe here: http://adv-marketing.com/business/subscribe2.htm
A Message from Bob
Friday Rant
As always, if anyone has a dissenting opinion, and it is presented fairly and in good taste, I will share it with you. Today, I will share one from G. Hamilton, who lives in Canada. I do reserve the right to comment on any opinion offered, which I will do at the end of the article.
As a Canadian, I can’t resist a comment on your rant about health care reform. Americans seem to believe socialized medicine means a five year wait for substandard care. This is utterly false and part, I suspect, of misinformation pumped out to scare Americans away from such schemes.
When someone I know was found to have a brain tumor, she had major surgery within two weeks. Others diagnosed with cancer start treatment right away. When I dragged myself to the emergency room, feeling bad, I was admitted to the hospital within an hour with pneumonia. I spent nine days receiving the best of care.
All of this didn’t cost a personal penny. Nor do Canadians have to scrape up money for health premiums or stay at outworn jobs because of the insurance plan. Business and industry aren’t burdened with coverage for employees. No one, no matter what their income, need fear they will be without health care. No asset is seized to pay a medical bill. No one can be ruined by medical debt. Our children inherit our hard-earned wealth, not some medical corporation. Our system gives each of us indescribable peace of mind.
We gladly pay through our taxes. As a US justice famously stated, taxes are the price of civilization. If we get good schools, universal health care and a strong social safety net to prevent the worst ills of poverty and ignorance, it’s worth every dollar. . Goodness knows, our system is far from perfect. There are cost pressures, service gaps, inter-governmental wrangling, inevitable blunders and a gigantic country to cover. Wait times can sometimes be long when everyone is in line, not just those who can pay, though a concerted effort is doing much to resolve this issue. For instance, you now get cataract surgery within 3 weeks and a joint replacement within 11 weeks. Anyone needing immediate help, gets it immediately.
Whenever “for-profit medicine” tries to establish itself, alarm races through the land. We are warned about doctors growing obscenely rich off the sickness of others. We are given the specter of lying deathly ill in a hospital eyeing us as a source of profit and bent on earning as much from our misery as possible while our insurance company plots equally hard to provide as little coverage as they can; neither much concerned about what is best for the patient. We would emerge either denied treatment or thousands of dollars in debt, headed straight into bankruptcy. We are grimly told half of all personal bankruptcies in the US involve medical debt.
This scare picture probably isn’t true any more than our “five year” wait times. Our system is private, by the way, but it has a single payer – the government. A Canadian doctor spends about an hour a week on billing as opposed to the 20 hours a US doctor needs.
Without insurance companies in the middle, money goes directly to medical support. Our system was begun half a century ago by Tommy Douglas, premier of Saskatchewan. Tommy, appalled by the dreadful suffering he had seen during the Depression in families unable to afford doctors, fought the “for-profit medical” establishment to a standstill, including their American reinforcements determined to stamp out the idea lest it spread south. And guess what! In a 2006 national poll to decide who is the greatest Canadian, this scrawny, long-dead politician won, hands-down, beating out founders, explorers, inventors, war heroes, sports giants and rock stars. I love him too.
Yes, a modern health care system is expensive to run, but how much better to bear the cost together, as a compassionate community, rather than abandoning individuals to pay with everything they have for life-saving treatment. Canada manages to provide good universal care at significantly less cost per capita than is spent in the US, yet we have a lower infant mortality rate and a life expectancy higher by two years.
I hear so many absurd statements from the US about “socialism” and “communism” that I feel compelled to speak up. If you want another opinion, please pick anyone from the Canadian phone book and give them a call.
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Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us on this most important matter. Yes, it is true, currently the US does spend about 50% more per capita, than you do in Canada. But this still leaves about 40 million people without coverage. My response to this unfortunately is rather long as well, and I will share it next week.
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Yesterday was a nice day, no sun and no breeze to speak of. Nice and cool. Just one of those days to enjoy outside, and we did off and on all day long.
Well, today is shaping up to be the same way. No rain in the forecast, no sun in the forecast and no breeze. Just a nice cool day. Even our dog enjoys staying outside on days like this. Right now, the lawn maintenance guy is out there mowing, so when he is done, will take her out and chain her so she can stay outside for a while.
Oh, Coco our dog has discovered a new snack she loves! The other day the wife bought some butter flavored corn puffs. Well, they aint butter flavored! Bland tasting so instead of tossing in the trash, tried Coco and she loves them. Told wife, we could put the entire container out and she would eat it all. Wife did bring over the second bag (we had bought 2 bags, lesson is not to buy something that looks delicious) to our neighbor for Coco snacks.
We went down to Osceola earlier this morning to do some grocery shopping at Fareway. Out of tea, and wife was going nuts in not having any ice tea. And bam, they are selling 93% lean hamburger in 10 pounds tubes at 99 cents a pound! We got one tube, and first got 2 more tubes for our daughter, but wife called her and she said she would take 5 tubes if we can get them. So ended up buying 6 tubes, one for us and five for the daughter. $60 is not bad at all for 60 pounds of 93% lean hamburger as at the meat counter, they had the same on sale for $1.99 per pound! And yes, got enough tea bags to make ice tea for the next week. Had Folger’s on sale for $5.99, but we have enough coffee put back so did not buy any. Every time we check out, my wife gets a bottle of her starbucks coffee and I get a bottle of orange juice, for the trip home. Today, no orange juice! But they did have for once some spicy hot v-8 juice, and that of course was delicious. And 70% less calories than orange juice, something my wife pointed out (ignoring that her starbucks has like 1000 calories).
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Soon after being transferred to a new duty station, my Marine husband called home to tell me he would be late – again. He went on to say that dirty magazines had been discovered in the platoon’s quarters and they had to discipline the whole squad. I launched into a tirade, arguing that many men had pictures hanging in their quarters at our previous post, so his new platoon should not be penalized for something trivial.
My husband calmly listened to my gripes and then explained, “Honey, dirty magazines: the clips from their rifles had not been cleaned.”
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The first testicular guard “Cup” was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974.
It took 100 years for men to realize that the brain is also important.
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TOP TEN INDICATORS THAT YOUR EMPLOYER HAS CHANGED TO A CHEAPER HEALTH CARE PLAN:
(10) Your annual breast exam is done at Hooters.
(9) Directions to your doctor’s office include “Take a left when you enter the trailer park”.
(8) The tongue depressors taste faintly of Fudgesicles.
(7) The only proctologist in the plan is “Gus” from Roto-Rooter.
(6) The only item listed under Preventative Care Coverage is “an apple a day”.
(5) Your primary care physician is wearing the pants you gave to Goodwill last month.
(4) “The patient is responsible for 200% of out-of-network charges,” is not a typographical error.
(3) The only expense covered 100% is “embalming”.
(2) Your Prozac comes in different colors with little M’s on them.
AND THE NUMBER ONE SIGN YOU’VE JOINED A VERY CHEAP HEALTH CARE PLAN:
(1) You ask for Viagra, and they give you a Popsicle stick and duct tape!
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05.26.09
Trip to Des Moines and Rain
Got up this morning to just a little drizzle. Not much to really water our gardens. So we headed off to Des Moines to visit our Aunt Louise.
We brought her some ham and beans, sauerkraut with bacon, and coleslaw, all made by my wife. Aunt Louise was tickled to see us bring those vittles, had them for her lunch. But prior, we got there after they had bathe her and got her dressed. So wife did her hair to make her look beautious. She was sitting in her wheelchair through that, then lunch time. No liquids as the kitchen was a bit behind, so she did with just ice water. After she ate, wife and I moved her to her electric chair and got her comfortable in that. Finally after that, the liquids arrived, two glasses of buttermilk, a glass of v-8 juice and a carafe of coffee. We soon left though I wanted to stick around as her brother and his wife were due in about 2pm from Connecticut.
We stopped by Aldi’s and got even more groceries. Still believe we could not go to a grocery store for 2 weeks and still we would not make much of a dent in the pantry, but like my wife keeps telling me, I run the kitchen so hush. And just now, wife comes in and tells me there are no tea bags! Ahahaha….now she can’t make ice tea. So I guess tomorrow, we are off to get tea bags and even more groceries as I know there is no way my wife will go to a grocery store and get just those tea bags.
The rain? Just a drizzle most of the way into Des Moines, but once we took Douglas exit, it started coming down good. Then it was a downpour from then on until we got home. Surprising how many people will still go faster than the speed limit in pouring rain where visibility is limited. Oh well, at least two vehicles went off the road. Might teach them to drive more carefully in the future.
All this rain, yes still raining, but not as hard as earlier, is helping the gardens. In fact, several spots in the garden are under water. But that will be soaked in and those plants will really grow when it gets sunny and warm again. Believe the forecast for tomorrow is sun.
