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The Uninsured Can Go To Health???

To download, read and dispel any rumors on the current health care bill facing a vote, here is a link to the full copy...

http://candicemiller.house.gov/pdf/hr3200.pdf

It's Time We Stopped Stopping Men From Being Men...

Every time I log onto my email I am overwhelmed with commercials about Obama wanting "Moms" to go back to school.

Men are getting the short end of the equality stick.  When I was leaving high school, real men did not become nurses.  As the manufacturing economy has collapsed around us since the 70's men have had their sense of purpose stripped away.  

if we want things to improve for moms, perhaps we should facilitate men to go to school so their better job could result in more child support.  Womens liberation has only gotten them more work and still at less pay.  Granted, being unwed and having a child seems to open the door for free food, living expenses, health care and free tuition, but that gravy train is soon to stop.  The government can't keep giving hand outs without some reasonable expectation that women will curb their reproductive habits.  The government can't keep punishing and burdening men, stripping away their masculinity and boxing them into a corner.  I saw a new article yesterday about a mom asking for more time to find a caregiver for her child before military deployment.  Men are called, men go.  Equal rights seems to shoot the rights of motherhood in the foot. An unfair law still on the books is that little form at the post office requiring all males 18 years old to sign up for selective service.  Not all individuals 18 years of age, males.  

A product of a single working mom that would not take a hand out from anyone, I know that with freedom comes the burdens of responsibility.  There is no way around that truism in life.  But, will people increasingly becoming more independent our children get to grow up in a world where you don't have to be considerate of anyone not giving you immediate gratification.  Want to come to the U.S.?  Cry abuse.  Want free college? Have a kid.  Guy, men don't have this option.  Considering that consumerism is the mainstay of our economy and that women working and controlling purse strings consume fivefold more than their male counterparts I only hope that today's modern single woman fiscally matures before the country is driven further in debt.  It's time men and women started working together.  It's time they started  curbing their reproductive stupidity until they can learn to care about one another before a third comes along.  An interesting question I always pose to couples is this:  Who is the most important person to you on this planet?  Women notoriously blurt out "My children."  Men, "My wife."  If you do your job right, your children grow up, leave and have families of their own.  So, the answer the men give is most correct because in marriage, two become as one and in any setting you get to take care of yourself first when the cabin of that airplane called life decompresses and you need to put your own O2 mask on first.  If you can't take care of yourself, are you truly going to be any damn good to take care of anyone else?  I think it is about time our government stopped rewarding people for being irresponsible.  And give both men and women equal chance to upgrade their employment through education if the first best step.

Goodbye To The Man I Hardly Knew

Goodbye To The Man I Hardly Knew

This past Sunday, 15 July 2007 saw the passing of Uncle Tommy, my moms youngest brother. My uncle, and Catholic Godfather.  A man that unfortunately was kind of hard to get close to.  A man that more often than not I felt as a bothersome nuisance to and curtailed my occurence in his presence as I edged into my adulthood.  A man referred to my father as Gasoline Alley for no other reason than to stress the point that my father suffered immense grief and antagonism (mostly with good reason) from my mother when he was leaving to get a beer  while Uncle Tommy would tell his wife that he had to get gas.  And so, while I was not in his life, I was.  As he would come to visit I enjoyed my younger cousins checking out our massive electric road race and railroad set up in our basement. While Uncle Tommy would ride them about not touching anything, I didn't mind. They were fun to watch and I was glad they enjoyed the train sets.  A portion of the family that I felt estranged from. My older sister used to travel with them as Nanny in her teens. When my brother and I went to visit, it eventually ended in a fight with my brother ganging up on me to the amusement of the onlooking relatives.  And if not for the unconscious love I do hold for my brother, a baseball bat to the head or a tire iron to the leg would have ended, eventually, his sadistic ploy for attention. But, as far as Uncle Tommy was concerned, he was quite instructive in my life. While he never took me hunting, I learned about hunting from him. While I never had the opportunity to drive him to the American Legion for a shot and a beer as I had with my Uncle Bud, his oldest brother, and listen to war stories.  I had war stories and paraphenalia for in my closet was a Samurai sword from the days of the war.  Its gauze wrapped handle, its weight which I wielded from time to time and the visualizing of my uncle the paratrooper jumping from planes in World War II in the south of the Pacific.  There was the story of his waking to find that his group had their throats slit.  And later in life the story of the folding stock MI Carbine that paratroopers were issued as his weapon of choioce deer hunting.  How he would use a block of wood to create the legal limit permissable by law for firearms with large magazines.  Perhaps these stories along with the small one that came with G. I.  Joe is what prompted me to have to have one (different folding stock) later in life, bayonet and all.  I first learned about construction from my Uncle Tom. His large porch, a poured slab of concrete over the garage decorated with the imprint of wood and overlay of plastic during it's pouring.  And ultimately I learned from my Uncle that we did not stand a chance of ever having a tan in the summer as expressed by his, and Uncle Buds constant sunburn to theface. Along these lines, I even went on vacation with Uncle Tom. I learned that you can take boxes of cereal and other general foods for most meals while on trips.  And, along with the sunburn to the face, that an arm perched on the ledge of the car door for several hours of driving could become sunburned as well.  One of my first formal lessons in dating came from Uncle Tommy.  My sister related that at some young age Uncle Tommy appeared in a suit dreessed up ready to court a woman that would ultimately become the love of his life and his wife. While my sister was watering the yard, she got the idea to feign hosing him down to which my uncle retorted "Don't you dare" to which she did. Grabbing her, he swatted her each step of the way back to the house but later my future Aunt Joannie just would not believe that such a sweet girl could have done such a thing so he must be lying about being late. So I learned several lessons. One, never dare a woman not to do something. Two, never expect a woman to believe that some cute innocent little girl was the actual cause of your tardiness when in fact you should have never have been late to begin with. There was another story about a bride before going off to war and a family initiated annullment as it was believed that the no good witch only got married to get the GI insurance upon his death. So I learned that women were vile and full of treachery. I don't have many stories about Uncle Tommy as a young boy save perhaps getting my mom to ride her scooter down long halls of a large house on a farm in Evans City and crach into the wall at the end of the hall.  And, oh yes, hoping to get off to bootcamp before his father, my grandpap, discovered that he had damaged the driveshaft of transmission or something in the family car. Funny, he used to chatter about my cousing repeatedly tightening his motorcyclel chain. Guess apples don't fall far from trees. And aside from the sadness my mom probably feels from losing her last family member I note my own reaction. When my father passed, there was no sorrow per se.  I remember his comments while he lived with me and later that he had lived his life and that since a stroke that wouldn't allow him to read or speak coherently (not like when he had a few too many beers but would actually "wix his mords") that he just wanted to die. While my own father was rough and often crude, he was a lot of fun, and some of my cousins have often remined me of that. Uncle Bud, immobilized by Parkinsons late in life received a blessinng but with his passing a closure on a history book never to be reopened.  But for Uncle Tommy I am sad, and from the above commentary rightfully so.  As you can see, we enrich other lives and sometimes we don't even know we had.

Metrosexual mahem

Why does a woman apply tons of makeup and hair spray to look perfect whereas a metrosexual man will apply hair gel to look like he just got up?

If There's Work In Heaven, I Don't Want To Go There

Mama Always Said

c. 2005 James Robert Fellabaum

Life is certainly a paradox.  My mom has been retired 25 years.  And while she worked, she sometimes worked 7 days a week.  Her favorite phrase listed above is now her antithesis.  In retirement she is going crazy looking for things to do, things to fix.  And it is this scenario that requires us to look at our own choice of activities for fun in preparation for retirement.  For the day will come when we either don't have to work or won't be able to.  So, for those that like sitting and drinking beer watching the sports channel, good.  Sounds like you are already retired.  For the rest of us we must look at who we are and what we do for fun.  Those who are into sports in their youth find it hard to play, work out, etc. later in life.  Not because it is difficult as much as they don't know how to hold back.  Their competitive nature makes the activity meteoric.  A short burst, short duration and a prolonged rest reminding them they are no longer spring chickens.  A dear retired friend, Dr. Albert Bares, does the crossword puzzle daily to keep his mind sharp.  I run into more and more people with the "I never went to college" cop out for not learning.  So when their retirement is ripe, they choose to rot.  As a youth I didn't like reading.  Recognizing this, I forced myself to read.  A habit I maintain to this day.  Even on a vacation, I set a goal to read one book.  Usually a classic.  I started with Shakespear.  Interesting how much easier it is to read when you do not have to take a test.  You read to read.  And in retirement if you don't go blind from diabetes or macular degeneration you can continue to do so.  My father was an incessant reader.  Nearing retirement he suffered a mild stroke that made the printed word look like this "dfg sdert  rree wre CAR  oouh gdf lkjh".  The aphasia he experienced in reading also manifested in his speech.  End result?  He was frustrated.  He couldn't read, and he couldn't pontificate.  An immense sense of futility and gloom came over him as he could still think, but not communicate.  Yet in my youth I remember him showing us how to build a kite from scratch or build a go kart from scrap parts (perhaps he was the original McGiver?)  Now there is me as I approach retirement.  While some people practice Fen Shui, I prefer Wabasabi: The art of addition and subtract to a design motif.  Thrift storing, painting and interior design serve some of my needs for a creative outlet.  I build models.  And I have a trunk that looks like the sporting goods department at Sears.  I do a little of everything.  Exercise now, it gets more elusive as lifes demands more of your free time when you get older.  Caring for people that are sessile makes that time sessile.  I could never get my family members to go and do as far as exercise.  Now I exscuse myself and keep in shape.  It's my health and it's my life.  I remember patients in the practice I managed that didn't understand how three generations of eating hush puppies could be bad.  It was normal for everyone in the family to have a heart attack at age 42.  Set your habits and maintain them as long as you can.  When you no longer can, you'll know why.  If there is no work in Heaven?  My mom goes crazy every minute because her mind set is "if you're not working, you're no damn good."  To this I say, make these two things part of your belief system: 1- Its OK not to do anything today but have fun and 2-You don't have to be doing everything to have worth and value and show people you love them.

Preparing for retirement starts in your youth, and it starts in your attitude!