Getting old

My uncle was fond of saying that "getting old was not a crime but, it was damned inconvenient" I have to agree that having the years pile on is not a crime however; in this country we often treat those folks that are older as somewhat as less than desirable. Warehousing those folks which are no longer productive has become the norm as well as big business here in these United States. While many other cultures and civilizations have reverence for the elders in their society we on the other hand like the out of sight and out of mind form of elder care. I myself am no different than the many of the folks that subscribe to the youth for youth sake and this is much to my chagrin. I will endeavor to change and I think that change will be in proportion to my age as I get older I will become even more militant as the years ad up, that is if I live to be "old".

Kasick Christmas

Governor elect doled out 71 Christmas presents this week and what a present he gave. PINK SLIPS yes, he fired seventy one folks for no other reason than he could. Yes, the governor decided because these folks were appointed by the outgoing Governor Strickland that they were not good enough to serve in his kingdom so, they are persona non grata. Merry Christmas!

Hero’s

Anyone doing his or her job well or at all for that matter has now earned the title of "hero". We as a society have now decided that everyone is a hero of some kind. Unfortunately, making everyone a hero makes the real hero's undistinguishable for everyone else.

Turnpike

The commission raised the speed limit on the Ohio turnpike to seventy miles per hour. Big deal if you have not traveled the turnpike lately driving seventy miles per hour will get you run over. Most of the drivers are well over that and especially those drivers from Michigan where the speed limit is seventy for all the major highways. Go figure!

Kasickness

The laughing or the crying depending on your point of view has begun even before the new governor has taken office. The high speed rail is dead in Ohio yea we need to keep looking and back and retain that rust belt title. Hey, I got a great idea let's be the Haiti of the united states maybe, Kasick can find ways to give back all the money coming from the federal government.

Our turn

When my parents were the age I am now celebrities and well known people began to pass away. Now it seems my generation will see the same cycle of life hit us in the face. Elizabeth Edwards just passed away, Aretha Franklin has pancreatic cancer and Bob Feller has been moved to hospice care. Cycle of life….hmmmm.

Buy a gun

Recently a young woman was shot within a stone's throw of my front door. Enough is enough and the time has come to buy a handgun. Moreover I would be willing to say that a lot of you should do the same. Learn how to use it if you don't have any experience in firearms.

Things you might want to remember

• It does not take a very big person to carry a grudge.
  
• The biggest trouble maker you'll probably ever have to deal with watches you from the mirror every morning.
  
• Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens- Jimi Hendrix
  
• Maybe this planet is another planets hell – Aldous Huxley
  
• In the fight between you and the world back the world – Franz Kafka
  
• Rules are made for folks who are not willing to make up their own – Chuck Yeager
  
• Let's roll – Todd Beamer
  
• Now each week I am going to repeat one of the 21 pieces of Chinese Advice ( not sure if it's Chinese or not)
  
• 1. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

Stop it!

Put down the phone, put down the mascara brush, put down the cheeseburger, put down the paper, put down the letter, put down whatever you have in your hand and D.R.I.V.E. You owe to yourself and your family and most of all to me. Being safe on the road is everybody's business and especially yours!

Tragedy

My heart goes out to Wendy and Dale Greathouse. Tuesday their daughter, son in law and grandchildren were killed in a tragic vehicle accident. Unfortunately I never had the chance to know their daughter and her family. However, I have known and worked with Wendy and Dale and they are good people. My thoughts and prayers are with the Greathouse family.

Nice going…..Not.

Feeling pretty good about yourself now aren't you? Voted those damn Democrats out, those tax and spend cronies, and you think you did a good thing. Well, all you did was cook your own goose and make things a lot worse for yourself and many others. Considering that you may soon have to wait till you're sixty-eight to retire, many of you won't make it to retirement. Many folks want to thank you for shoring up the social security system for those who will make it….paid all those years and now you're going to take a dirt nap and not see a dime. Nice voting, maybe next time you'll remember who put us in the ditch to begin with!…..Nope, it took you eleven years to figure out we needed a casino.

Something to ponder

Older workers especially ones that have risen to the top of the pay scale and are nearing retirement may need to beware of their employer. Part of the reason there are few well paying jobs is the process of elimination of the older workers position and then giving the workload to another lower paid and younger worker who dares not make a protest for fear of losing their job. Once this is accomplished the employer finds he gets the same amount of work for the price of one worker. Hence lower cost of labor as well as fewer benefits to pay. Win win for the employer and the older worker is basically screwed.

Gridlock

Tuesday's election if goes as predicted will more than likely bring on a gridlock in Washington that has never been witnessed before. Conservatives feeling their respective oats will now feel that they can stop every initiative from any corner. Horribly, the architects of the debacle will return to the scene of the crime. Great just great……..ironically, it won't be their fault it will be yours!!!!

Facility use

I received a notice in the mail recently from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation explaining their new idea to squeeze even more money out of your insurance and or me and you. Seemingly, they have come up with the idea that when you see your physician, they want to hit you with a facility use fee. Really, do they think we are as stupid as the day is long? Greed must be the most intoxicating drug on campus at the worlds Mecca of health.

Business or Law

 

I was watching WVIZ channel 25 and they were presenting the candidates for the new position of Cuyahoga County Executive. After listening to the candidates, two of which were business people, I realized that what we don't need from now on are candidates that are either lawyers or business people. In regards to the latter, the very last thing we need is a business person in government. Why you ask wouldn't a successful business person be a good idea!? The business person will do what is best for the business and not necessarily what is best for the average citizen. Moreover, since the largest sections of society are baby boomers and those who are retiring, we need someone who is in our court and not in the board room.

Radical Islam

Radical Islam has now replaced the Nazi's and the Khmer rouge as the current lot of evil unleashed on the world. Each generation has had its scourge that has plagued the world. The Nazi's cast a dark shadow and it wasn't until after World War II ended did we find the extent of their evil. The Communists were next and they were not as evil as the Nazi's, however, they certainly caused many people in the world a lot of suffering. Many smaller groups cause pain and suffering around the globe in regional pockets of Africa and South America. However, the worst of the worst up until now has been the Khmer rouge. They have killed more people over their reign of terror that still lasts today. Courts in Cambodia are still dealing with their legacy.

Now comes the Taliban, a small but ruthless religious band that wants the rest of the world to convert to Islam or die. Does this sound familiar? The idea is not new. It has traveled through the ages. The question is how we deal with them and how we keep them from becoming a worldwide epidemic. From this chair I believe the main responsibility rests with the Afghan people and the people of that region. They must reject the ideals and the people outright and completely, they must take the fight to the Taliban and destroy the movement at the core. Will they do this? Can they do this? Time will tell.

Consequently, if Afghan people fail and fail with our help then this religious war will be what I believe may consume the world. I believe that the fight will pit Christians and Jews against Islam. There are many Islamic folk who are not radically inclined, but the poor and disenfranchised which are many and growing will find, as some do now, the Taliban attractive. Therein lays the rub, having Islamic fundamentalists in every country stirring the fires of hate and calling the rest of Western society the devil. Sound familiar? Remember, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Last Sunday NBC aired a piece on poverty in this country. One week later the American person responded in their usual fashion and sent donations and clothes and food and for two men several job offers. Now, I am sure these folks that gave came from all walks of life, liberals and conservatives. Now one wonders why the elected officials cannot do what seems to be so easy for the rest of us.

The time has come for the elected officials in Washington to have their lives taken back down to the peoples level. What I mean is they need to live like we live or maybe even a little below the level of most of us. Why not stay in dorms like soldiers or students, have meals served mess hall style, bussed to the capitol and have a nice uniform to wear? Compensation would be like the rest of us….hourly. Punch in and punch out, spend a full day at making the laws of the land. Additionally, NO lobbyists…..meeting with any lobbyist would mean immediate termination.

Once Congressmen and Senators start living like the rest of us they will start thinking like the rest of us. Laws would start to be more for the average Joe. Popularity of the Washington crowd is at its lowest level. So the time has come for them to live at that level and stay there until we tell them they can come up a step or two.

    
 

 

 

 

Work Week

For as long as I can remember people have been complaining that the weekend is just too short. I have to agree that two days is just not enough. Over the years and in the various positions as a nurse I have experienced some very nice work schedules. Without a doubt having one more day off every week would go a long way to making folks less stressed and more relaxed. I believe that people might even help the recovery by taking mini vacations those three days. Three days gives you plenty of time to go and have a good time and get back in time for the next day of work. We all love those three day weekends we get every two or three months. Wouldn't you like to have those every weekend?

Gone for good

What many people may not realize about business is that when a business is started it's to make money; jobs are just a necessary part. Ask any business person in private and off the record and I think they would tell you that they would not have employees if they could avoid it. Recession has given business what they want and that is the ability to conduct business with fewer employees and keep production at the same levels. Having employees is a cost of doing business and part of the overhead that cuts into the profits. Granted there are few business models that can't get along without some employees but many are finding that they are making it with fewer and that is the problem. Realistically, it means that many of the jobs that have been lost are gone for good. The take home message is that if you have the chance you might want to think about training in a field where there will always be a need for employees. Remember to ask yourself, could this be done by a robot or in some way be done cheaper and better. If the answer yes then think again about heading in that career direction.

Earl Grey no I don’t think so

Recently, The Morning Journal had two opposing views of the "Tea Party "movement, one being from E.J. Dionne speaking to the NAACP view of the Tea Party and racism. Today's edition has an opposing view from Mona Charen.

Full disclosure dictates telling readers that I am white. My ancestors hail from England and Ireland which makes me Anglo-Saxon, and I was born in Kentucky which makes me part redneck I guess. I am as white as white gets. Moreover, there are "Tea Party" folks in my family and YES they are racists. Not outwardly, they're not stupid, but in private they make no bones about it. Does this mean that the tea party movement is racist? I am not sure but I can only tell you what I see and what I hear.

Currently we have folks running around screaming and yelling, girding their respective loins calling themselves the "Tea Party" in reference to the Boston Tea Party. From this chair, the only thing these folks have in common with the early Americans is their ethnicity, white Anglo-Saxons. Realistically, the "Tea Party" is a splinter group of the Republican Party and a full member of the conservative platform. Not many minorities are represented on the videos I have seen of the verbal gutting of politicians at town hall meetings.

However, the conservative movement has courted the minority vote with promises of inclusion and input in party platforms in the past. Minorities were important to the conservative movement for their monetary support and how they voted on Election Day. That is about as far as it goes; the last D.N.C. Convention looked like a NASCAR race at Darlington…a lot of white faces. Realistically, it seems that the conservatives only needed their votes to gain power and then it was thanks and will see in two years.

Granted the Republican Party has a black man as the head of the R.N.C. However, I believe that he is just there as window dressing. Very little comes from the head of the R.N.C. of late, and as we learned early on, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin are the speakers of the R.N.C.

Ironically, white Anglo-Saxons will be in the minority as soon as 2016. Maybe this is why there is such uproar. Notice who's doing the talking and what they are really saying? I have been around awhile and I don't believe for one second all this spleen venting is about health care and the government being too big. Power and keeping it in the right hands is what the fuss is about.

 

Wal-Mart

Whether you like Wal-Mart or hate it, the corporation has a measured life span. Wal-Mart conveys everything it sells by truck; one estimate places the number at five thousand trucks, mostly eighteen wheelers. Moreover, many of the hard line items come from China so that means it takes a lot of petroleum to get those products on those trucks from site A to site B. Consequently, the price of that petroleum will rise as time goes by. Someday, and I won't speculate when, the price of a gallon of gas will hit ten dollars. Well before that time Wal-Mart, the airlines and any other business that depends on gasoline for its life will have gone by the wayside. Conversely, should the advent of some new engine that gets 100 miles to the gallon, or a new type of fuel that extends the range of a vehicle, we might see the lifespan of the above extended. However, like anything new, it will be pricey for a while and again making importing from overseas more prohibitive. This scenario will probably not happen anytime soon but it will happen. Oil is a finite commodity, and at the rate we consume it and spill it, we will see a dry tank sooner than we would like. What is the price when you decide enough is enough? One wonders what Wal-Mart will do when the cost of transport becomes an unattainable position! All those trucks and all those big box stores……

Co pays

Unless you have a great insurance plan, you have to pay a co pay. Amounts that you have to pay vary from plan to plan, but I have seen some folks pay as much as thirty-five dollars per person per visit. I have never understood the reason for co pays…..is it to deter you from going to the doctor or is it that the insurance company feels that they just can't get on board paying the full price for your visit? Doctors and hospitals already receive only partial payment for service and have for some time. Again, discounts vary from plan to plan, but most doctors receive somewhere around half of what they charge.

Co pays I feel will continue to rise and at some point we may need ask to see the finance department so we can stretch the payments out over three years. Unfortunately many of the state and federal health plans for the poor and indigent have no monthly premium and or co pay what so ever. Now I understand that if you're indigent you may not be able to afford any amount, but even one dollar would seem to be at the least a gesture of good faith considering taxpayers are paying the freight for two policies…

Apathy

Apathy is a condition which seems to infect a city and its citizens and drains its will to continue. You can see it in many aspects of society from the national government right down to the folks on your block. I believe it begins when you have been discouraged or disappointed so many times that you just don’t care any longer. I noticed a local aspect which reflects the cities problems and possibly its citizens. Maple Park is a small baseball diamond with a new backstop and some good folks who landscaped and really made the area look good. Unfortunately, that was last year, now the field is overgrown and the bases are gone, the flowers are dead and it looks much different than one year ago. Even the folks who did all the good work have not been back and I cannot blame them. They asked for help from the rest of the neighborhood and they got little or no help. Fighting a losing battle and spending your own money can only go on for so long. I would imagine that even Bill Gates would get tired without help. My point is that for this city and this state to get off its back, everyone has to do something. Even as we struggle through this recession it is more important than ever to help your neighbor and your neighborhood to get through the tough times. I do believe that old line that what does not kill you makes you stronger. So would it kill you to get up and help a little!

I am the last person to disparage anyone’s civil liberties and I would support your right to the death to keep them. Having said that, if you ride a motorcycle without a helmet I must question your intelligence and your love for your family should you have one. I speak from the experience of a flight nurse for over five years and multiple scene runs to pick up the remains of motorcyclists who did and did not wear helmets. Of the many accident victims I took back to Metro Health Medical Center, the best outcomes were the folks who wore helmets. Many of those who did not wear helmets are now in wheelchairs or are confined to hospital beds for the remainder of their lives. Some of these accidents resulted in a long nap, never to wake again.
Having a family and not wearing a helmet is the ultimate in selfishness. I know you’re never going to have an accident. I hope you don’t. However, the graveyard is full of those “never going to happen to me” riders. Should you not be killed you might have a long hospital stay. Society then begins to foot the bill for your care. Take a look at the cost of long term care. Most long term care facilities cost between five and seven thousand a month. But, you’re not going to need that because you’re the exception to the rule. Right, you’re lucky ……..then why haven’t you won the lottery?
I have been in aviation since graduating high school and a pilot friend of mind told me that if I stayed in aviation long enough someone I know would get killed. He was right. It took many years but two very good friends were killed in a crash. Statistically, flying is safer than driving and certainly safer than riding a motorcycle. Nonetheless they were killed, but you won’t because you’re special.
I’ll never talk many of you into putting on that helmet when you’re out on the road. So, why not do something else for your family and for mankind? Sign a donor card and have a living will made donating your organs to someone who needs them and who will take very good care of them for the rest of their lives. Moreover, it will make your family feel good that you showed some intelligence and that you are not selfish at all.

Neighborhood Development

Many communities around the state and around the country have taken the razing of abandoned buildings one step further. Waiting for years to seize the abandoned buildings is now down to a year in some communities. Eminent domain takes the building after a year of having no occupants then is demolished to the ground and left to go back to the original state before development.
Many communities are transforming these empty lots and spaces into community gardens and parks, built and managed by the residents in and around the area. Could we do this in Lorain? Optimistically, I would say yes. We have one man who decorates several corners in Lorain and it seems that the vandals have left the decorations alone. Would the gardens and parks established by private citizens stay intact and flourish? The city is doing the demolishing; now the land should be donated to the local residents to take and improve.
Additionally, we have an area on the south side of Colorado Avenue at the end of Missouri Avenue. Setting idle for more than two years, the area has become a great area for deer habitat. Many evenings the deer move close to Colorado Avenue while feeding. We can take the area and turn it in to community gardens. The area sits idle so why not let it become a place where folks can grow food for themselves and their neighbors. Leaving it sit idle is just plain wrong.

No free drinks

I had to shake my head when I heard the Ohio house decided that there would be no free drinks in the casinos. I suspect that they will want to pick out the carpet and decide which way the toilet paper comes off the roll also.
I hope the casinos will counter this by charging, say, a penny a drink. The whole idea of the free drinks is to compensate patrons in a small way while they spend their money. I cannot decide whether it’s outright greed on the legislatures’ parts or are they simply reminding the voters who is really in charge!
Seemingly, the legislators want to mess with what has already been shown to work in every other casino. I would hope they would stick to screwing up the regular things and leave things they know nothing about alone. WRONG! The people have spoken, but the legislature wants to make it known that the people will have fun only at the lawmaker’s pleasure.

Selective socialism

We hear a lot about the government running everything, that we are sliding headlong to a socialist state, rhetoric that mainly stems from the conservative tea party agenda that we are a tax and spend tax and spend democracy. Social Security, Medicare and Workers Compensation programs are government run and clearly the beginnings of a bigger socialist agenda..
Look at each of the above programs and consider what happens if they were to be removed under a conservative America. Without Medicare many folks including these same conservatives and their families would be paying out of pocket for medical care. One really bad illness and everything you have ever worked for would be gone. Then what? One of my family members was on thirteen different medications just to stay alive. The prescription cost without Medicare looked like the national debt.
Social security is probably the center stone of the socialist ideal. Considering a majority of Americans do not have enough money to retire in the first place, Social Security was designed to help those same Americans put food on the table, keep the lights on and the toilet flushing.
Let’s say you fall off a roof or cut your hand off with a saw while at work and find yourself in a situation where you are unable to work! Workers Compensation keeps the furnace and water running. Remember, accidents and illnesses are equal opportunity destroyers.
Now let’s take it all away, no safety net. Americans could never retire; they would literally have to work until they drop on the job. You become ill and lose everything in a flash. You’re hurt on the job and then lose that job because you can’t work! Quick move in with the relatives and burden them. Maybe they will have enough room in the basement. Hope you’re not afraid of the dark!

During the heyday of our local industrial revolution manufacturing came here for the water and produced thousands of jobs. Industry for the most part is gone and probably for good. However, one thing remains the same, is still here and big as it ever was and cleaner than it’s ever been, Lake Erie.
Why is it that we have one of the largest lakes that is, in my humble opinion, underused? Why is it that Lake Erie is not filled with double or triple the number boats and jet skis? Why aren’t paragliders filling the sky and regattas, power and sail, every weekend all summer and into the fall?
We have this huge body of water to play in that travels the entire northern part of the state, and it seems that we have decided to let homes populate the shoreline leaving the chance for commercial development out. Now, I don’t disparage anyone who is lucky enough to live on the lake. However, there are plenty of sections of the shoreline that could be developed into something that looks like any one of the beaches along the east coast.
True we won’t be giving Miami any competition, but folks, I think we can give the Jersey shore a run for its money. We share a common gift with the East coast, a large body of water, and the East coast realized they had a gold mine and have taken full advantage. Multitudes of other areas have done the same thing, Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach, the list goes on. Moreover, we do not have to worry about the dangerous weather that the east coast and Florida must deal with. Cities that sit on the Lake Erie need to take the gift and run with it. Lakeview Park is a good example of a good start. Catawba and the area of Ottawa County is also a good example, but we need to take it to the next step. Again we need to think big and bold.

School Zone Speeders

Almost every day I travel by at least two school zones and school is in session. Every day I see drivers speeding through the zone. The speed though a school zone is twenty miles per hour. Every day, I see at least seven out of ten drivers violating the limit.
Few things rile me more than folks that feel the need to speed where children are in and around the streets and sidewalks. Some do not even attempt to slow down; some even have the nerve to speed up. I wonder what defense those who speed would have in front of a judge after causing the death of a child. “I was late for work”, “I was late to pick up my dry cleaning”… really just what excuse can you come up with that would not bring the rath of the court system on their heads.
Luckily there are few incidents where we see children injured. However, one is one too many. I would think that with so much law breaking and the need for money in the city coffers, police presence would be more evident. Couple of mornings and afternoons for a week or two might be a financial windfall and slow some of these folks down.

Mars....no cure there.

While you are reading this and should you be a male, look around the room. If there is another male in the room, one of you will get cancer. If you are female and find yourself in a room with two other women, one of you will get cancer. Those are the ugly statistics and have not changed for some time.
Having been a nurse for many years I have seen many wondrous moments and many moments that have shaken my soul. I find that death from cancer as particularly egregious and I have seen my parents succumb to the disease and watched many patients die quite painful horrible deaths from cancer
This makes me wonder why we want to spend jillions of dollars to find water and or life on mars. Additionally, why are we spending good money going back to the moon. Did we leave someone’s watch and we need to go back for it?
There is no one that was more thrilled when I watched the moon landings. I have seen every Star Trek movie ten times. However, I cannot justify in my mind spending money on the fancy of some when we have so many problems here on Terra firma.
Granted, I realize there are tons of jobs involved, national pride and everyone likes to watch the rockets roar. We have realized some gain from spaceflight. However, I would be willing to bet that laying in bed with a tube in every orifice, unable to eat or drink, in pain, delirious and unable to control your body functions you might take pause at the budget for N.A.S.A. The cure will be found here on earth with good basic research, the kind of research that found a cure for polio, vaccine for small pox and diphtheria. Moreover, it will take money to fund that research and I suspect a lot of money. Miracles don’t come cheap and the cure is going to be expensive. Maybe, we can spend a few more billion on research and when we cure cancer then we can go look for that golf ball.

Blog Note

This blog are the thoughts of a man during the time he is cutting the grass and or sitting and watching it rain. I am not a professional journalist and I do not have the time to do all of the research needed to write paper worthy stories. The words you read here are not articles, they are thoughts, ramblings and the occasional rant. Should you need all the things you find in a daily newspaper then you should probably look elsewhere.
I am attempting to spur on debate to make you think about what I have said, to make you take it a further and add to it. I also want to hear what you think and tell me why my view is right or wrong. This blog is a give and take, However, if your looking to argue just to argue then I will not take the bait. I am not looking to recreate anything on fox and msnbc.

Better stimulus package

Recently a few friends and I came upon an interesting idea. The government stimulus package is somewhere around nine billion dollars. There are approximately three hundred million people in the United States who roughly make up one hundred fifty million households but most likely even less than that. Let’s say the government gave all those households each one million dollars! Now that is a better stimulus package!
Some stipulations go with that grant of one million dollars. You must pay off all credit card debt and you must pay off your mortgage and or buy a house. Additionally, you must purchase a new car and buy your own health care coverage. After all this, most folks would probably still have at least a half million to continue to stimulate the economy in the smaller sectors of the economy.
Some folks could and would retire which would cure the unemployment problem fairly quickly. With all the vehicles, houses and televisions, furniture and appliances being bought, the private sector would be well on the way out of the red.
No, you can’t go to Vegas and try to parlay the one million into two million. I know some of you had that cross your minds. Gambling is negative stimulus and would be a deal killer with the political management, which would be all over this idea to begin with. The plan is so simple and effective, which could be why Washington hasn’t thought of it. Could there be something wrong with it? Better stimulus at a much lower price. You don’t have to pay it back and is saves billions!

Why outside the lines?

When I was a child in grade school the teacher wanted us to color inside the lines. Unfortunately, I was one of those children who just couldn’t do that. This blog will be along that same vein, I want people to realize that solving our problems large and small requires we think outside the lines.

We have been locked into what used to be! We must throw that yoke off and think with bold strokes. Have you ever thought what makes one place different than the next? Why other cities are more successful than others? My contention is that they take Robert Kennedy’s words to heart. “Some people see things as they are and say why, I see things that never were and say why not.”

We here in Lorain specifically and in the county at large must begin to think along those same lines. Why are there no wind turbines all along the shoreline? Why are there no solar cells on every tall building? Can we not find a way to have the college team with the cities to provide actual training for students and power for the city saving money in the process? Yes, there are obstacles to overcome! However, we must overcome them move on or watch our sister cites prosper while we sink deeper into the rust. I hope to explore a new idea a radical idea to get you thinking and saying “why not!