Category: Rants

In which I go off on the stupidity of politics, politicians, world affairs, religion, and whatever else I deem to be screwed up.

Anti-Socialized Medicine

Posted on by chappyshi

I am up working in Canada as some of you may know. I had to go to the doctor’s today, which in Canada is a whole new experience, to get a persistent rash looked at. Canadians pay taxes to get “free health care.” Read “Socialized Medicine: The Canadian Experience” for a Montreal economist’s spin on the positives and negatives.

Here’s my spin. 2.75 hours waiting to see the doctor. One doctor serving one waiting room and six consultation rooms. Walk-ins, which I pretty much had to be since I am a U.S. citizen, were secondary to those with appointments. When I got there, the receptionist said the wait would be at least an hour. After I had been there 1.5 hours, walk-ins were told the wait would be at least 2 hours.

So I get to see the doctor who had the bedside manner of a turd…but smelled worse. At my doctor’s office back in Virginia, even if you are a walk-in, they weigh you, take your pulse, BP, an temperature. None of that here, I showed the doc the rash and he checked to see if I was breathing okay. Maybe there is a correlation there but I don’t know what it was.

He wrote me a quick prescription for a topical lotion which will hopefully help me get through this, recommended a few antihistamines to try other than Claritin, and suggested a bathing solution that is based on oatmeal. I liked oatmeal with raisins on a cold northeastern winter morning many years ago when I was a kid but have not had it in years. I certainly never bathed in it.

As I think back on it, it might have been cool. You could drop a turd in the oatmeal and it might be deemed a raisin. Speaking of nasty, I hate taking baths. Why should I lie in a tub, in this case with some oatmeal water, soaking in my own filth. You just have to take a shower afterward. WTF?

What the hell? I broke down and took a bath. I honestly cannot remember the last time I have done so. If it helps get rid of or eliminate the symptoms of this rash I’ll be happy but I won’t want to make it a habit.

Lastly, I think that the pharmacist spent more time talking to me about the condition and was more informative. Sure the meds are cheaper up hear but forget about the service. You cannot get a prescription filled up here that was written by other than a Canadian doctor. I guess if you don’t mind paying into the system to get the discount on meds you are okay. It is not for me though.

Death by Sport Ute or 4×4

Posted on by chappyshi

It was bad enough this morning that I read in the Washington Post that, in the process of evicting a woman from her home in Southeast DC, authorities found the bodies of four girls thought to be the daughters of the woman, who without an apparent care in the world, answered the door. Then at lunch I read that a man from Bayou LaBatre, Al, who had reported his four children missing a day or two ago, admitted that he had thrown them all of an 80 foot bridge.

What the fuck? Can you say “Eight is Enough?” I like Rage Against the Machine but can you say “Killing in the name of” how many should I do today?

Since I have more information on the D.C. situation, I’ll start on that.

Woman Charged With Murder of Two Girls Found in SE House

From the Washington Post, follow the link…look at this freak. Her name is “Banita Jacks.” Isn’t that some kind of fish, bonito? Good thing she was not a guy. Would have taken a lot of grief in high schools with the hole “Jacks Off” thing. She said the children died prior to September 5th. What the fuck? Smell ya later? The cops said the bodies were so dessicated they might have been killed as early as May. This chick’s nuts…grab ’em!

From the Washington Post, Nation in Brief: Police: Father Threw 4 Kids Off Bridge. According to the article, the dude, who had a history of crack cocaine abuse, threw his children, aged 1,2,3, and 4 off the Dauphin Island Bridge over the Intercoastal Waterway. Hard to image that no one noticed this. I have seen a lot of people fish off bridges in the deep south but using children for bait is a bit extreme. Might put the 20 lb test line to the test…

Washington Post Editorial, Surge in Iraq Without Question Has Reduced Violence…

Posted on by chappyshi

According to the Washington Post editorial, “See No Good…Why do the Democratic candidates refuse to acknowledge progress in Iraq?” dated 8 January, 2008, “it’s indisputable that the surge had dramatically reduced violence.” The editorial refers to the surge of troops, effective early last year, requested by General Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force – Iraq.

How the Post could unequivocally state that the surge has reduced violence I don’t know. There are way too many factors in the Iraqi political, military, ethnic, religious, and social scenes to be able to state “indisputably” that the “surge” has reduced violence. Let’s have a longer look at the facts on the ground and let a bit more time pass before we make that assertion.

Snow, Ice and the Canadian Immigration Rectal Device

Posted on by chappyshi

I worked with a Marine in Korea whose name was Bruce Bechtel. We called him “Rectal Bechtel.”

Anyhow… I used to work for a company that whose parent company was Canadian. I occasionally traveled to Canada for work or for a “site visit.” I now work for a U.S. company which has a facility in Canada. I occasionally travel there for work or for a “site visit.”

In 1997, long before 9/11, I used my passport to go back and for to Canada…the license and birth certificate were too cumbersome. Who really wants to carry their birth certificate around with them? Mine is old and perishable. Hopefully yours will get that way too.

I can’t remember exactly what the immigration officials asked me when I crossed the border but it was more likely to have been the basic “Where are you going/staying, where are you from, and what is the purpose of your travel. Welcome to my country.”

Now it is more likely to be..”Where you from, where are you staying, who are you visiting, what is the purpose of your travel…are you taking a job from an able-bodied Canadian? Do you know I could arrest you for trying to enter my country and provide IT support for a manufacturing facility that is owned by the company you work for? What? You got an immigration lawyer involved? Do you know that immigration lawyers are a dime a dozen? I really don’t care. I am the bottom line here. If you come back without the proper documentation that I mandated you provide, I will shoot you and then, if you are still alive, I’ll arrest you and ban you from Canada for a year. Two days in a row this week I tried to cross the border to fill in for our guy in TO and I got rejected. Not only was it cold but it was cold!

Today, four days and 1050 miles later, I finally am in Toronto. I don’t feel quite so bad since I ran in to our facilities manager up in the hotel here. He showed up at Dulles airport yesterday morning shortly after 0600 and finally made it up here at 1630 today.

I have never had issues flying into Canada that I have had when driving in. Once, in 2003 or so when crossing on vacation at Jackman, Maine, I got stripped searched and had my bags and car totally violated. That would be the bags I packed my clothing in…not my…bags. They told me they had detected marijuana and cocaine on my steering wheel and door handle and suggested it would be best if I confessed.

I had bloody nothing to confess. They threatened to bring down drug sniffing dogs from Quebec City which would have taken at least three hours. That meant nothing to me. I told them to go ahead and do it. Finally after more than two hours of searching, interrogating, and humiliating, they said I could go.

Last year when I drove in for work, I was told I needed a “letter of introduction.” Excuse me while I introduce myself… We worked it out so that I could drive in and get the “letter of introduction” faxed to Canadian Immigration the next day. That was the last I ever heard of it.

So I figured I was good to go for this year. I got an updated letter of introduction, went up to see my dying grandmother in Jersey and then to Vermont to ski for a couple of days before I drove up to Toronto. As noted earlier, I was rejected and had to drive 475 miles back home to Virginia.

As fate would have it, my cell phone died, probably due to use in sub-zero temperatures, not long after I headed south to VA. Upon my arrival home, I found that the paper work I needed to enter Canada had come in about 1.5 hours after I had headed south. I was not aware of this until I got my phone on the charger at 2200 when I got back to my apartment Thursday night.

I headed off to work on Friday and called my boss to see what he suggested. Since the paperwork came through for my work permit, he asked me to plan to be up at the office in Toronto Monday, the 7th. I mentioned that my “check engine” light came on about 750 miles ago and that I would like to get that checked out prior to driving back up. He suggested I cut out at about Noon to get that taken care of but since we had a tester that never came back up after the extended holiday, I stuck around to spend as much time on that with Craig as I could.

The whole process of getting across the border from America to Canada to work for a facility that is owned by the company that pays my salary is totally bizarre. I hit the border today with all the documentation that I thought I needed. I met the preliminary filter, the guy in the booth, to whom I told the whole story of trying to cross elsewhere and getting rejected because I did not have the required documentation. He was cool about it and bounced me to the indoor office as he should have. But before you can get to the “indoor office,” you have to be cleared by someone who looks in your car in the parking area.

She asked me what the deal was with all the stuff in my car. I had skis, bags of clothing, a cooler,etc. I explained to her that I expected to be in Canada for a few weeks and had skied in Vermont on the way up and hoped to ski while in Canada and again on the way home. If I have to be on the road, I will take advantage of it. Homegirl asked me what I had in the cooler so I told her I had a bit of food and some Bud’s. She asked “Buds as in beers?” to which I replied no, “they’re a few parts of pals of mine that I like to keep close to.” Necro what I mean?

I did finally make it across. Ironically, I entered at Buffalo on the “Peace Bridge.” They should call that the “Piece Bridge” because someone is going to get a “piece of your ass” when you cross it. They say a “Mountie always gets his man.” I think what they mean is Canadian law enforcement is always going to “mount me like I am their freaking whore….se”

The Dalai Lama, George W. Bush, the Pen, and the Sword

Posted on by chappyshi

I respect the Dalai Lama as much as anyone I can think of. Exiled from his own country, he is still the object of adoration and respect for Tibetans and Buddhists world-wide. George W. Bush should be exiled from his own country which he has led into a position of hatred and disrespect around the world. Look at some of what the Dalai Lama says in a Washington Post op-ed published October 21, 2007, titled “Brute force can never subdue the basic human desire for freedom”

He speaks of the benefit of non-violent opposition as compared to the benefit of violent opposition. “One may sometimes feel that one can solve a problem quickly with force, but such success is often achieved at the expense of the rights and welfare of others.” Can you say Iraqi intervention?

“We need to embrace a more realistic approach to dealing with human conflicts, an approach that is in tune with a new reality of heavy interdependence in which the old concepts of “we” and “they” are no longer relevant. The very idea of total victory for one’s own side and the total defeat of one’s enemy is untenable. In violent conflicts, the innocent are often the first casualties, as the war in Iraq and Sudan’s Darfur crisis painfully remind us.” Can you say antithesis of George W. Bush? Add Somalia to that list of crises…

The Dalai Lama goes on to speak about religion, the role of women, care for the environment, and education, things that touch all of us. Please read the article and, please, care.

Hospice Care and the Morphine Drip

Posted on by chappyshi

In Charlotte Allen’s Washington Post op-ed, “Back off! I’m Not Dead Yet. I Don’t Want a Living Will. Why Should I?,” dated October 14, 2007, she speaks about the bad feeling she got when, preparing to go for surgery, she was repeatedly asked if she had a living will. Charlotte expressed her doubts about the benefit of a living will and about how it actually be enforced.

There might be many people involved in trying to interpret the will but the creator is likely to have no say. Unfortunately, there are likely to be enough different interpretations of the patients desires to make them impossible to agree upon, from the point of view of the physicians and family.

That is neither here nor there for the point of this entry. One thing that particularly freaked out Ms. Allen, was an anonymous call she got about hospices, when she was visiting her 93 year old father who had prostrate cancer, in which the caller said, “Then, what you have to do is take them to a hospice. That’s what they did with my mother. They’ll put him on a morphine drip, and he’ll be gone in a few days.”

Reading this sent a chill up my spine. My grandmother Chase, who was in her early 90’s, passed away at the managed care center in her retirement community late this summer. She had recently been put under hospice care. She was in much pain from bed sores and screamed horribly when she had to move or was moved.

She had been on Oxycotin briefly when, as I understand it, the hospice representative suggested she should be given morphine. She had only been on that for a few days when my sister was called and informed that a chaplain had been in to pray with grandma in the afternoon. I got a call that evening to say she had passed away. Oh, the chill is back…

Iraqi Identity Crisis, Traffic Cop or Brigadier General?

Posted on by chappyshi

The Washington Post article “U.S Repeatedly Rebuffed Iraq on Blackwater Complaints,” dated 23 September, 2007, by Sudarsan Raghavan and Steve Fainaru, describes a scene in which a traffic cop had a bottle of water thrown at him by a Blackwater USA security guard. According the article, “the officer was so furious that he submitted his resignation, but his superiors turned it down.”

The odd part to me is that this traffic policeman held the rank of brigadier general. I do blame the majority of Iraq’s woes on the U.S. invasion and occupation. Have we messed things up so badly that brigadier generals have to seek work as traffic cops or do Iraqi police forces just have a very odd rank structure?

How Many Pairs of Jeans Do You Have?

Posted on by chappyshi

According to the Washington Post article “Rising Demand in China and India May Make Cotton More Kingly,” American consumers own on the average nine pairs of jeans. What the hell is up with that? The most I have ever had was five and that was when I started working at a company where I could where jeans to work five days a week. Before that I might have had three pairs at the most at any given time. Nine pairs it just ludicrous.

Getting Paid Poorly to Ride My Motorcycle

Posted on by chappyshi

I rode the scooter up to Youngstown for work last Wednesday. It is nice to get paid to ride but I don’t think I am getting paid enough. I am out at our Ohio plant with the local tech and one of our guys from the Data Center doing a network and server migration. What a ball buster. We fine tuned our plan Thursday and Friday hoping to have the cut done on Saturday so we could go to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland today (now yesterday) but it wasn’t meant to be.

Thankfully it was a nasty raining day that would have made for not the nicest of days in Cleveland. As it is we have put in 30 hours in the last two days and tomorrow is not likely to be much better. To cap the day off, we got to the beer store at 11:50 PM thinking we were just under the wire only to find out you can’t even buy beer on Sunday.

There should be signs when you enter the state, or county…who knows, that announce this fact, “No booze sold on Sundays.” Youngstown is so close to Pennsyltucky, the beer stores there must have a field day on Sundays. Oh well…too tired to even get a good rant going.