Month: August 2004
The Conservative Victim
Posted on August 31, 2004 in Campaign 2004 Propaganda
The gist of the message from the man whose cronies have gone to great lengths to disparage the genuine military service and accomplishments of real veterans and those draft resisters who made true sacrifices in the name of conscience is “Pity me”.
Archive Templates?
Posted on August 31, 2004 in Bugs
Good advice will be treated as precious and the giver held in the highest esteem.
The Old Fire Today
Posted on August 30, 2004 in Old Fire
The hills which were excarnated by the blaze have the look of bone.
Problems with WordPress
Posted on August 30, 2004 in Bugs
Whatever was happening with the archives links on Saturday seems to have disappeared, at least for me. I still have the “page not found” error for comments turning up. Anyone with php or WordPress experience out there who can help me debug? I am also having problems with plugins (I have a fix I am going to attempt, but again, knowledgable people are needed to debug.)
I also need help setting up permalinks.
But look! I fixed the comment box problem! I’m not totally useless!
Another Week Off
Posted on August 30, 2004 in Roundup
Due to the necessity of pulling my head together following this sucky August, I am taking another week off on the Roundup. Fear not: it will resume. I just need to find my head again.
Bush and the Twelve Steps
Posted on August 27, 2004 in Accountability
You’re not yet fit to declare yourself cured of your disease until you have faced up to all the ill effects it wreaks on others through you.
The Lint of August
Posted on August 26, 2004 in Depression Memory Weather
I participated in an open mike poetry reading tonight and my performance, like much of my August, was sucky. Though I had good material, I declaimed it poorly. I felt like so much chopped up gray. When I drove home, I pushed the air conditioner to its highest notch so that the stickiness stepping in from the coast would freeze and fall to the floorboards instead of adhering to my skin.
I’ve never liked August. Not for the Feast of the Assumption. Not for my dad’s birthday which fell on the same day. Not for the lion of the zodiac. Not for the clear night skies. August is the empty streets of Zagreb remembering in asphalt the parboiling of ferns in an ancient tropical heat. It is San Bernardino vomiting from the smog and the threat of September when things get hotter and dryer. It is the first fires. And it is the time when no one comes to anything worth doing together.
August is a wad of lint.
The Evasion and the Point
Posted on August 26, 2004 in Campaign 2004 Health Medical Ethics
How like the Rude to write off boorish behavior as they write off atrocity in the War in Iraq!
Harassment of Book Dealers by the Rude Wing
Posted on August 25, 2004 in Campaign 2004 The Orange
I have heard of individuals going ballistic, but more and more this is sounding like an organized effort to discredit this chain and publicize the book at the expense of the comfort of uninvolved and otherwise apolitical working people and managers.
All Hat No Cattle
Posted on August 25, 2004 in Campaign 2004 Crosstalk Medical Ethics
If you have come here because of the reference at All Hat No Cattle, welcome. I was surprised to see the referrals flooding in this morning. I did not seek out the publicity. This blog, like many others, is a journal of personal experience and opinion. I am still deciding what to do about last Friday’s experience at an Orange County, California cardiologist’s office. I am not ashamed of what happened, but I feel shamed without cause.
What was done to me should happen to no one. At least one of my friends feels that this is also being done by Democrats, but I have seen no proof of this. Perhaps it does and I would say the same to them as I said to this doctor. Do not politicize the medical office. We are here for treatment and stress is an enemy of that.
On the other hand, here in the Orange, I have not seen this kind of behavior being played out by liberals and I did not see it being played out six and more years ago when I lived in Silicon Valley where there are more liberals. The news of the past few weeks about the use of church membership rolls suggests that there is an organized attempt to enter politically neutral establishments for the purpose of propaganda and recruitment. What happened to Glenn Hiller shook me even more deeply. I doubt that this event was directed from on high by the Bush Mogul Machine, but I see it as evidence of a Confederacy of Dunces lining up to attack John Kerry and anyone else who disagrees with their resounding cruel political correctness.
As I said at the outset, I am considering my options. It is not likely that I will sue as some friends suggest because I am not in this for the money. Whether I have grounds for a complaint with the California Medical Board remains to be seen. That or going anonymously (if that is possible now) to the newspapers or the Kerry campaign are the options before me now.
No one except for another doctor (and then only in a hint) has suggested what the man hiding behind his 1972 diploma did to me was right. My personal doctor gave me the “its his office” line. Yes, but it is my health and both men are bound by the Hippocratic Oath to make that their first priority in their workplace.
Some who heard of what happened through my wife called me “heroic”. If I am a hero, I feel very much alone and isolated as seems to be the case with many who point out the madness and corruption of this age. I am struggling not to lose my faith in doctors as a class and to keep my health — I am diabetic, asthmatic, and suffer from depression — my primary focus. This is not a price heroes or ordinary people like me should have to pay. I suggest the exercise of personal controls — reminders of ettiquette — to bring us back to sanity. Plus an informed vote for those candidates who are problem-solvers rather than problem-makers, people who relieve the stress of the many by small personal commitments and good manners.
Ghosts
Posted on August 25, 2004 in Encounters
Lynn’s new car is a white ghost, a Nissan Sentra equipped with a stick. I took her down to pick it up tonight. She liked it from the first test drive. A rebate sweetened the deal.
After we signed all the paperwork and got the keys, we went to IHOP. The small assistant manager on duty reminded me of a friend from high school. I kept peering at his name tag, believing that I saw the last four letters and the initial R of “Richard”, which was the lost friend’s name. He seated us and left before I could confirm.
This question plagued me all through dinner: if this was the old friend, did I want to say hi?
We finished our meal. I went to the cash register to pay the check. Having decided to keep my anonymity, I paid in cash. Then I saw his name clearly. HECTOR. How had I made Richard out of that? My mind saw lines and corners glinting under the flourescents. Out of my hopes — or were they dreads? — came the name I wanted to see, I suppose.
Lynn followed me home. I saw several ghost white cars on the road, of similar streamlining and figure as hers. Auto makers are not terribly original and we see old friends in all sorts of faces.
Like Wow! I Didn’t Realize!
Posted on August 24, 2004 in Attitudes Reading
We’re overdue for effective advocacy and accurate interpretation of the Hippie lifestyle, which overlapped with many other movements, some of which were simply dirty, boorish, and destructive such as the 1% clubbers of outlaw bikedom.
