Arkansas Blog

Cherchez la femme.

Oh, wait, he's a Republican, isn't he? Maybe we'd better cherchez le jeune homme.

Not, of course, that there's anything wrong with that.

New sign for my front door:
NO SOLICITORS
Please Go Away If You are selling something.even Jesus.
No salesmen, Baptists, Evangelicals, Jehovah Witnesses.
You folks annoy me and make my dogs bark.

UPS, friends and family?
You guys are always welcome at our house.
Thanks for coming by!

I don't want to be mean and unfriendly, but really I am just tired of these people.

As I said last evening . . . (clicky).

Haven't heard anything since.

Markie's a bad, bad boy.

"Markie, you got some explaining to do!" Cue voice of Desi Arnaz.

There was the case of former Michigan Gov.George Wilcken Romney hiking to the mountain top to pray about running for President.

It was working out really well until LBJ had him "brainwashed" in Viet Nam.

Cato can do the details.

There's no Comprehensive Health Care Reform coming out the Senate Finance Comm,

only "comprehensive incrementalism."

There is no public health plan either.

clickit.

If Nixon had his way, Obama would never have been born.

Sadly, I don't think the GOP has changed much in the last 36 years.

Do the clicky.

A Quote Worthy of Note:

"When my father went back to the hospital a year ago, he was clearly close to the end: His lungs and liver were barely functioning, his abdomen was filling with fluid, and he could no longer lift himself out of bed. The hospital's doctors nonetheless treated him aggressively, punching a hole in his chest to insert a drainage tube which quickly led to uncontrolled bleeding, an infection, and a plunge in blood pressure.

"Within 12 hours, my father was in a coma, with no chance of recovery, sustained only by a ventilator and a tangle of multiple IV drips. He spent four days in the ICU, until I overcame the resistance of two doctors and had the machines turned off, as per my dad's living will. Medicare paid upward of $20,000 for these last days of my father's life, during which he received little comfort, moments of agonizing pain and fear, and all the medical care in the world, and then some.

"In the historic debate over health-care reform now beginning in this country, we will hear much talk of 'rationing.' If health care is rationed, we'll be told, we may be denied drugs or surgeries or treatments based on cost, effectiveness, or the patient's condition or age. It sounds cold and heartless, except when you consider that the only real alternative to rationing is unlimited medical treatment -- including a refusal to 'lose' the battle with death even when death is near. Unlimited care, of course, requires unlimited spending, which is not viable. Rationing in some form is inevitable; the only question is when we'll finally be able to admit to ourselves that even in America, there are limits to everything."

--- William Falk, writing in The Week magazine

Thanks for that William Falk excerpt, Durango.

Watched exactly the same thing with a terminally ill older friend last year. Two years of treatment for cancer cost over $200,000. Between Medicare and supplemental insurance, he didn't pay a dime. Thank God he was conscious to finally say, "Enough," and be moved to hospice care where he died peacefully three days later, or they'd still be "treating" him and billing Medicare.

Durango,

I totally agree with the last part of the quote. Why don't we have euthanasia for those who are on their last leg and want the cord to be pulled?

I know! The GOP! They only care about embryos and vegetables (Schiavo) but don't give a rat's ass about anybody in between.

Putting your story into perspective durango, about 75% of medical expenses are spent in the last
six months of the patients lives. Death with dignity or some such thing is what I specified with no artificial life support when I could not recover anyway, just time to get final affairs in order.
Of course it should be noted that last six months could mean expensive measures for a mother 44 years old and dying of cancer. Such was my sister's case. You try anything that may work. But the case you cited above is all too familiar.

Everybody should have this worked out well in advance because when something happens to you causing you to have little or no control over your life or your body some other person will need to make those choices for you.

Ah, memories, eLwood. George was on top alright.....forefront in the GOP presidential race in '68 until his "brainwashing" confession escaped from his mouth. He turned from being an avid supporter of the War to an opponent and critic. Dick Nixon beat him 'cause he had a "secret plan" to end the War. When Nixon was pressed by the press to reveal the plan, he simply stated it wouldn't be a secret if he revealed it. Of course, after taking office in '69 and the War continued, it was revealed Nixon had no secret plan, of course.

By the way, VP HHHumphrey closed the gap the last two weeks of the '68 election. Many observers noted had the election been held a couple of weeks later HHH would have won the thing.

I like this guy's attitude. Click on Cato

See where your auto was assembled by doing the clicky thing.

Even advance directives, "living wills," or whatever they are called could be useless if the wingers have their way. They've been trying to get laws passed to invalidate the wishes of the patients who do not want their agony prolonged. If making living wills illegal is impossible, they have tried to get exceptions to allow relatives, friends, or clergy to intervene. Other ploys have been to allow the "conscience" of the physician to override the documents. A couple of years ago, after the Schiavo incident, they tried in Arkansas to allow strangers to cancel living wills just by saying "as I was passing by the room, I think I heard the person say they were thirsty."

Best advice, have all of your relatives and significant others sign your document agreeing not to challenge it and give them each a copy. And carefully monitor the legislature.

In memory of Ed McMahon....clicky

Littel Rock Cracks the top twenty with Dallas, Cinncinati, Jacksonville, Memphis, etc. CLIK.

Little Rock cracks the top twenty with Dallas, Cinncinati, Jacksonville, Memphis, etc. CLIK.

You must hand it to Republicons. They start bitching and yelling about TV news specials BEFORE the show airs.

Read David Westin, ABC President and surely a close friend of NormaB, as he responds to earlier
Wingnut whining -

"Dear Congressman Smith:

Thank you for your letter of today's date concerning our planned coverage tomorrow of health care reform in America. I am pleased that you agree that the subject deserves extensive and careful coverage. This is precisely what ABC News has given healthcare over many years; it is what we plan to continue tomorrow.

Unfortunately, you have found it appropriate to criticize a program that has not yet aired."

clickit
.

NormaB,
Just for you. Betty Bowers on Bible-based marriage.

elClicko

Ma was clearly dead when I ran in the door of her rest home room about noon on March 15, 2008. They had her down on the concrete floor buck naked giving her chest compressions until someone brought the electric paddles and started shocking her. They had pumped her so full of juice that her old sick heart started beating again....but her eyes told me all I needed to know.....she was dead and had been for a while. I was screaming for them to stop and someone told me she had a full resuscitation order...which was a goddamn lie because I filled out the Do Not Resuscitate papers the 2nd day she was in that hell hole. But there were too many people in the room to fight and really.....what did it matter? Mom was past someone hurting her and laying buck naked on a concrete floor robbed any dignity there was in death....dignity in death......how absurd.

The young paramedics worked on her frantically all the way to the St. Edwards ER and into the ER room. Then nurses took over as I stared at one procedure after another being performed on a corpse. But after 5 or 10 minutes...you know time is meaningless in a situation like that...I screamed at them to stop and I start towards them to prove my point. Why must blood samples be taken from a dead woman? Isn't there plenty of 77 year olds around to take blood from, must you do it on a dead one?

Ma's heart kept beating for another 5 or 6 hours as my wife and I sat there waiting and watching...without a shred of hope because the second I saw her....I knew there was no hope at all. Drugs were keeping her sloshy old heart beating, and here again I get to brag that her lungs after 64 years of being filled with unfiltered cigarette smoke continued to deliver oxygen to her dead brain at near the 100% level. But that's not my point.

There's no telling how much money was charged to Medicare between noon on the 15th of March, and 6 pm when her old heart stopped. I can't guess....2000....8000....who knows? I never bothered to open the statements that came after we buried her. What's the point? I had spent 6 months looking at the statements from the rest home for doctors she never met, services that were never provided, therapy that someone did in their fantasy world. A couple of hundred dollars shy of 6000 dollars per month. Being more generous than Jesus, her monthly stay wasn't worth 1000 dollars.

The whole time Ma was sick I witnessed the screwing of the government. When she got to the rest home.....it was on the scale enjoyed by the New Jersey Mafia...but what could I do? What 1-800 number could I call to report a theft? Do you think Pryor & Lincoln would have given a damn with the amount of campaign money they get from the nursing home lobby?

I've not been a role model for anyone in my life, but the one thing I've never been is a crook or a cheat. I may have cheated on my wife, but I have never cheated anyone out of a penny. So it was mighty hard being a party to the screwing of the Federal government. And it was every bit a screwing from the moment Ma dropped over from a massive stroke. The stroke specialist gave her an experimental drug in hopes of saving her life the morning she got sick. At the time I thought it was a miracle.......but now I know it was a curse.

Ma lived to lay in a bed and watch TV with her one good eye that was going blind. The most humane thing that could have happened would have been for Ma to slip away that morning while I held her hand and cried. Living long is a blessing until it turns into an absolute nightmare, and very often it does just that. Put your hat on tomorrow and pick any rest home in Arkansas and spend 20 minutes and you'll see what I'm talking about. While you're there think 6000 bucks every time you look at an inmate. In Ma's rest home there was 125 x 6000.......to hell with Oceans 11.....give me 1 rest home.

Our government was charged more in the last 3 years of her life than Ma had spent on herself in the proceeding 77 years and it was all for nothing, mostly unnecessary, much of it a criminal scam. Obama can appoint me tomorrow and by the end of the month I can save 50 times my paycheck just in Fort Baptist by using some little webcams to show that 99% of rest home dwellers in my town are used to bilk the government and little else....and I'm talking untold millions in just this city alone. Google says there are 228 nursing homes in Arkansas, 359 in Oklahoma, 1291 in California. According to Kaiser there are 24,531 nursing home beds in Arkansas......times 6000 per bed comes up to $147,186,000 per month in little ole Arkansas alone. No wonder they can own Lincoln & Pryor like they were trained monkeys! If I was L & P, I'd up my damn price!

We should quit worrying about Ahmadinejad in Iran.....he's small fish compared to the corruption and abuse going on in the medical community of your town. But just wait till we get them Trauma Centers up and running! Yes sir....that'll fix everything! Everything.....for those already bilking us out of millions. Our medical system is sick, perverted sick, criminally sick. We can fix it....but first we got to quit going along with it.

Heck Boy's we are plum down here in healthcare, anybody seen the Guv.? Let's get the Huckster suited up and send him looking, what should we get him a cobalt lamp hat and a bull-horn? Lets send O Rielly and the rest of Fox Veiws to check the airport and bus station restrooms, think all those connected Repub's know there way around in those?

Tell it, DBI. NEVER shut up about this shiz.

Thank you for that report.

That is all so true DBI, My Mother died of pancreatic cancer, she was in the last stages when they found it. They had treated her for diabetes, for two years almost, course this was 1971, in KC,Kansas. But you are right they can pump all the money they want at this problem, but ani't going to change a darn thing until they bust up the Health Care Organizations. And Nursing Home Inspectors, that's just another way they can get some Politicians Kin a job.

eLwood -

Thank you for Betty Bowers' in-depth documentary on Biblical Marriage. She pretty much nailed it, so to speak.

I'm just up, on my second cup of Nigerian coffee from Nigeria, which is in Africa, that I bought at Heifer International Village at their Grand Opening. $20 for two pounds of really WONDERFUL whole bean coffee and you're helping, like, this tribe or something.

Fast tour through the online morning news -- then down to the basement gym for Pilates and a little Norma-nurturing.

I encourage ALL Razorbabies to nurture themselves with Pilates. Particularly our welcome meth and crack whore trolls. We're all God's children and we love you.

No, seriously.

Click me.

Horreur et putréfaction!

Making my second pot of coffee and notice the beans are NOT from Nigeria. They're Ugandan Mountain beans. Which is like a whole a different country in Africa named Uganda and not Nigeria.

In case you're shopping at Heifer International Village.

I'm so sorry, Nigeria. And Uganda.

But seriously: great beans.

NormaB my chiro used to teach people to build their core strength back in the 80s. He had an entire regimen of exercises which build the abs, and lower back muscles plus the traps. They are simple exercises too. Did them for years but smoking undid them.