Ya' Just Can't Make Some People Happy:(

You just can't seem to make some people happy. For years conservatives have been whining about 'bleeding heart' liberals blocking off-shore drilling. Now here comes President Obama who recently issued an executive order-and thereby reversing campaign promises by the way-to ALLOW some off-shore drilling. No sooner is this done, what do you think our whining, screaming, frothing, obnoxious conservative friends do?? They complain it's too little too late. What a bunch! How do they stand themselves? It is my fervent hope that this November the voters give them the surprise of their lives and INCREASE the majorities the democrats already hold. Will they finally get the point? What do you think?

Revolting Rove

Without question hypocritical, conservative republicans have a pretty good lock on obnoxious gasbags but chief among them-with the possible exception of Cheney-is Karl Rove, the jerk who engineered the election and re-election of Junior. The evening news recently reported that Rove was driven from a book signing ceremony by a group of his detractors. Rove's response was what do you expect from the totalitarians on the left. I think he's a tad confused. Totalitarianism is uniquely a right wing phenomena. It's obvious Rove still has a knack for distorting truth and history. Crawl back to Faux News-or in your hole, creep.

Hey, John. How's that judgement thingy workin' out for ya'?

Hey John, I hear you've got Sarah, gas bag, Palin campaigning for you in Arizona. I have a few questions. Remember when you lost the general election to President Obama? Remember how many political analysts attributed that loss to your choice for Vice President? Remember how they questioned your judgment for making such a fool-hardy choice? Remember how afterward she trashed your campaign team and accused them of not cooperating with her? Remember that buying spree she went on in NYC? Do you remember any of that, John? Just wondering.

Announcing a New Website: All About Newtown

The purpose of this post is to announce the launching of a new website. The site is for and about Newtown. It's newtown.patch.com.
The editor of the site stumbled across the blogs that you've been reading here and from here to my personal website (http://georgeswebpage.com). She contacted me and asked me if I'd like to write a twice weekly column for newtown.patch.com. I agreed so as of this date, the site will be available to one and all. The pieces I write for patch.com will not be mirrors of this site. I will continue to blog here but my pieces on patch.com will be longer, a little more polished and pertain to Newtown in some way-however loosely. I made it clear to the editor that I was not a journalist and that I did indeed have some opinions-as you may know. Patch.com is fine with this so off we go on a new adventure. If you have a minute, check it out. And keep coming back here. I have plenty to say!

Questions, Questions, Questions

I have a few questions.
1. How can anyone NOT like the health care reform bill just passed? Note that I don't include Republican politicians here because their job is to not like anything that remotely resembles progress or people over insurance companies. Their job is to say "NO" or do whatever is good for the rich so exclude them from this question.
2. Do people seriously think they'll get better treatment from insurance companies and HMOs? Do they actually trust them more than their government?
3. Do people seriously endorse the policy of withholding medical coverage to people with preexisting issues?
4. Are opponents to this legislation that stupid to think this is 'government run' health care?
5. Have opponents to this legislation looked into it at all? I mean even a little? or are they too busy listening to gas bags like Republican Minority Leader John Boehner who had himself a childish little hissy fit after the vote?
6. Do people seriously think this is going to matter in November? Don't they realize that what matters is how they're doing on exactly the day that elections are being held?
7. Don't opponents of this legislation realize that the governing factor in November will be the state of the economy at that time and that by all indications there will be a huge improvement?

Question, questions, questions.

Ignorance Reigns

How about that group of "kill the bill" advocates who gathered in Washington, D.C. yesterday? Aren't they great? Let's see, how do they get their point across? Do they explain in a reasonable, intelligent way why they oppose the health care reform bill being voted on today? Do they set forth ideas of their own as to how to get this very necessary legislation into law? Not exactly. What they do is scream, rant, chant, spit on congressmen entering the Capitol and, finally, the classiest move of all, they yell the 'N' word at congressmen of color passing by! Isn't that great? Do these ignorant jerks represent your views? They sure as hell don't represent mine! They did more harm for their cause then the legislation being passed/failed today does. Unfortunately, it doesn't end today. This will go on and on through the summer up to election day. Will it be over then? Yeah, sure.

Serious Arm Twisting

It's all over the news this morning. The 'news' is the presidents unprecedented arm twisting of reluctant congressman to pass his health reform bill. He's put all of his political eggs in one basket and it could all go tumbling down-but probably not. Still, if that health reform legislation is so important I wonder why I don't know more about it. What will it mean to me? Anything? What will it mean to my son-in-law who is involved in the health care industry? I don't know anything about it because no one does. That's exactly the problem and that's exactly why many Americans are opposed to it. The republicans are opposed to it because that's what they do-oppose. It doesn't matter what the issue is. It doesn't matter how important or beneficial it is. Just say NO. But ordinary people like you and me need to know what this thing is all about. Go ahead, Google it. Try to make sense of the whole thing. That's Obama's major failing. The vote in the House of Representatives is tomorrow. Let's hope they pass this.....well, what ever it is!

Top o' the Mornin' to Ya'

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Thanks, Ben!

Talk about taking things for granted! It's only when you lose it that you realize just how much we need it. At 6 P.M. Saturday evening we lost power. We didn't get it back until noon the next day. And we had it easy. There are many people around the state who are still out. So compared to other people and previous years we were practically living in the lap of luxury. We've lost power before for days at a time in winter and were it not for our wood burning stove, we'd be at someone's house or a hotel. But this time we have our cell phones and my battery powered laptop has a mobile card so we were able to stay in touch. Plus plenty of candles, flashlights, bottled water and a gas grill and we were good to go. But it was still a royal pain. I can't honestly say I missed TV. It's the need to severely conserve water that gets to me. I hate not being able to take a shower or flush toilets every time. Also, at night I can't read by candlelight so there's nothing to do. Well, it's back now and I've vowed to stock pile more water. And honest, Ben. I'll never take it for granted again.

Clarification

My last post regarding the health care debacle drew a variety of responses that have led me to believe I may have been misunderstood so for the record let me clarify. I did not intend to imply that the majority of uninsured people in Connecticut were illegals nor did I mean to imply that they are the ones clogging emergency rooms. As someone pointed out, many folks are self employed and they find the cost of health insurance to be prohibitive. That alone increases the number significantly. Also, I am fully aware of a hospital's triage procedure. The point is there were so many people there because they didn't have insurance that I kept getting shuffled to the back. I haven't any idea who was legal or not-although let's be honest-more than likely a lot of them did not have green cards. Finally, it is a great injustice to stereotype people by assuming that if they're Hispanics then they're illegal. This is not at all the case. End of discussion.

Who Needs Insurance?

I just heard on the morning news that there could be as many as one million people in Connecticut who don't have health insurance. Is that possible? How could that happen? What about that Husky program-or is that only for children? Connecticut is a relatively small state. According to the infoplease.com website there are about 3.5 million people. To me that is an amazing number and I can only imagine how it shapes up across the nation. Yeah, yeah, I know. Those numbers include illegals but, hey, there aren't THAT many illegal immigrants in the nation. I wonder if that helps explain why I had to wait 4 hours in the emergency room for a 20 minute IV procedure. People with no insurance tend to use hospital ER's for primary care. I guess you could say I was penalized for having insurance. The larger question here is what the hell are they doing about this mess in Washington besides bickering? It's pretty bad when the majority party can't even get this done. It's a pathetic situation and one of many reasons why so many people are utterly disgusted with the political process on the Federal level. But, hang in there. November is just 8 short months away.

Scientology-Cult or Religion?

The lunatic fringe that we sane people are forced to deal with every day manifests itself in a number of interesting ways. One of those ways recently made its way into the news. It’s the Church of Scientology. After a fair amount of research and observation, I have concluded that Scientology is a cult-pure and simple. Note I said ‘cult’ as opposed to religion-even though the Church of Scientology (COS) enjoys tax exempt status. The news item I referred to is about a young lady who has left the church and decided to come forward and reveal the COS for what it is-a mind-altering, money/power grabbing group of lunatics. Scientology was created by a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard. When you read through its official website you get the sense that you are indeed in the middle of a science fiction novel. It’s full of stuff about aliens, past lives and altered mind states which are measured with the famous E Meter by people called Auditors. Interestingly, there’s very little mention of God, the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit and, incredibly, nothing about Jesus. After reading through their website I realized that what they’re really all about is behavior/mind control. How on earth did they get tax exempt status? They must have had great lawyers. There are a lot of celebrities who are Scientologists. The two that come to mind are John Travolta and Tom Cruise. Travolta keeps it pretty much to himself but Cruise, as we all saw when he was interviewed by Matt Lauer of the Today Show, is vocal and forceful about it to the extent that he sometimes appears to be somewhat deranged. No, Scientology is not a religion. It should be paying taxes on the considerable sums of money it raises. Where’s the justice?

Hallelujah

Hallelujah, indeed. Every time he managed to pull himself out of his chair without assistance, he yelled hallelujah; or as he was leaving his room to attend a news group he yelled hallelujah; in fact, there weren’t many occasions when he didn’t yell it and for all I know he’s doing it now-where ever he may be-for on Wednesday, March 3rd at the age of 86 my friend Gene B. passed away. I first met him when I started volunteer work at Lockwood Lodge/Masonicare. Our little group of about 6 or so men started out playing pool. From there we changed to having a men’s discussion group. Now and then we took field trips to various local points of interest. Finally we changed from the discussion group to a news group and invited women to participate. It was the day after our last meeting that Gene died. Gene was an interesting man. He was born and raised in Bronx, NY. During WWII he served in an Army/Air Corps reconnaissance unit in the China/Burma theatre. After the war, he became a NYC police officer and was stationed in the Bronx. He did that for 23 years. After he retired he worked a number of part time jobs and played golf. Gene had two married children. His wife had died in 2003. Gene had a great sense of humor and was always joking around. I’m going to miss him. An unfortunate part of doing volunteer work with the elderly is that there is that sense of loss from time to time but as the Indians say, ‘Only the rocks live forever’. RIP, Gene. Hallelujah!

Who's Responsible?

Read this letter:

Dear Mr. President,
During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ring tone. While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer. And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture", a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based in the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me". Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.
Respectfully,
Starner Jones, MD

Think about it. If you choose to speed & get caught, your insurance goes up, right? Or, let's say you're a student who decides to party instead of study the night before an important test. You fail the test, right? Or, let's say you're annoyed with your neighbor's big oak tree and you decide to cut it down. You're going to get sued for damages, right? In other words you're responsible for your actions and if you don't act responsibly you suffer the consequences. Well, as stated in the above letter, why shouldn't the same logic apply to health care. Many people are experiencing increased health insurance costs and the reason is partly because they're subsidizing people who make poor choices about the way they live. If someone decides to make a poor choice about their life style shouldn't they and they alone bear the burden of increased costs? I believe it's an interesting idea that's worth exploring.

They're At It Again

Behold Republican Senator Jim Bunning from the great state of Kentucky-one time ball player and now sanctimonious gas bag-not unlike the rest of the hypocrites on the right side of the aisle in good old 'Foggy Bottom'. Someone explain to me how it's possible for one person-democrat or republican-to have the ability to bring the entire Senate to its knees. This jerk refused to go along with just about everyone else in voting to extend unemployment benefits for millions of people. His colleagues had to practically beg him to shut up and sit down. Vote the guy down and be done with it! Isn't that the way it works in a democracy? It's no wonder there's so much anger directed at Washington these days. Along with many Congressional republicans, conservative talk show hosts are attempting to convince us that the general discontent we are all feeling is due to the president and his policies. They're constantly bombarding the airwaves with their pronouncements that the American people don't want just about anything coming from the current administration. Well, guess what, gang? No one ever asked me what I think because if they did I'd tell them it's not the president that's the problem. It's congress-most especially that pack of 'nay sayers' who do nothing but sit there huffing and puffing obstructing every effort to move this country forward and solve the problems that were handed to us after 8 years of criminal negligence. But, as I said, no one asked me. That's why I have this blog spot. Who knows? Maybe the Republican Senate Minority Leader will stumble on this and get an education. Ya' think???

Stuff, Stuff and More Stuff

Now that we have reasonably clear weather, have you noticed there's a full moon? I did so I decided to take some time exposure pictures of it to post on my web site. In order to do that, I need a tripod which I have but when I went to get it, I couldn't find it. I figured the cleaning ladies moved it because they're always driving me crazy moving things around. Every time I come home after they've been at the house, I have to locate a ton of stuff: glasses, remotes, books, magazines, etc. Anyway, I looked for a long time trying to locate that tripod. In the course of doing that I began to realize just how much stuff we have. I don't consider our house to be inordinately large given the McMansions that have been built around here in recent years. It's about 2500 square feet not counting a 400 square foot finished room in the basement. Every single corner, closet and room has stuff in it-and we don't even consider ourselves people who hold on to things. The house has 4 bedrooms. One of them is ours. Another is now serving as a sewing/quilting room. The third has a crib and a queen size bed in it so when ever our grandsons stay over, it's their room or it can be a guest room or it can be for one of us if we're sick and don't want to infect the other person. The fourth bedroom has two beds in it for the two grand children who aren't in cribs any longer. Then we have a family room, living room, kitchen and dining room. At one time or another, every room is used. The closets are jammed. The garage manages to hold two vehicles but there's plenty of stuff in that too and, were it not for a 8'X16' shed, both of our vehicles would be outside year round because in my shed I have assorted hand tools, a snow blower, garden tractor, chipper, tiller, lawn mower, chain saws, weed wacker, two leaf blowers, etc etc etc. I've become an expert on packing limited spaces. To return to the original topic, I was reminded of all this 'stuff' as I turned the place upside down looking for my tripod-which I finally found in the family room closet under a pile of....stuff. There are two times when I'm bothered by this situation. One is when I lose something-which happens more and more as I get older and older. The other is when we begin to contemplate that time when we have to move because I either don't want to or can't keep up with owning a house and property. Certainly we'd give most of the 'stuff' to our kids so they could worry about it but they're not going to want it all. Then what? But that time hasn't come yet so in the meantime I hope the weather stays clear. I have my tripod. I have my camera. I'll take some pictures and worry about the stuff later. Want some stuff?