That's my opinion, and it's very true.
#28 ©June, 2004 ••••••• Don Harthcock, Editor
That's my opinion, and it's very true.
#28 ©June, 2004 ••••••• Don Harthcock, Editor
OpinionSoup may contain language and topics unsuitable for children.
"'There are no dumb questions,' it is often said; and yet, one hears them constantly." ~Don Coyote
IN THIS ISSUE:
COLD TURKEY - by Kurt Vonnegut
EWING STREET TIMES - The Great Unknowns
FDA CRACKS DOWN ON ANDRO - "The Home Run Drug"
GEORGE BUSH RESUME - Hail To The Cheef, Y'all
HEROES - Pentagon Begging Bowls
NOW READ THIS - Radical Commie Pinko Links
OZ BACH - Another Good Man Done Gone
PART OF ALL YOU EARN IS YOURS TO KEEP - George Clason
PATIENTS RECEIVE WRONG TEST RESULTS - Now THAT's Healthcare!
WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD? - Questionable Quotes
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COLD TURKEY
by Kurt Vonnegut
But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America's becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.
When you get to my age, if you get to my age, which is 81, and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged, what life is all about. I have seven kids, four of them adopted.
Many of you reading this are probably the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.
I put my big question about life to my biological son Mark. Mark is a pediatrician, and author of a memoir, The Eden Express. It is about his crackup, straightjacket and padded cell stuff, from which he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: "Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is." So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it.
I have to say that's a pretty good sound bite, almost as good as, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, 500 years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ.
The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.
But back to people, like Confucius and Jesus and my son the doctor, Mark, who've said how we could behave more humanely, and maybe make the world a less painful place. One of my favorites is Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute in my native state of Indiana. Get a load of this:
Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was only 4, ran 5 times as the Socialist Party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:
As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.
As long as there is a criminal element, I'm of it.
As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
Doesn't anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools or health insurance for all?
How about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. …
And so on.
Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney stuff.
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
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There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
But, when you stop to think about it, only a nut case would want to be a human being, if he or she had a choice. Such treacherous, untrustworthy, lying and greedy animals we are!
I was born a human being in 1922 A.D. What does "A.D." signify? That commemorates an inmate of this lunatic asylum we call Earth who was nailed to a wooden cross by a bunch of other inmates. With him still conscious, they hammered spikes through his wrists and insteps, and into the wood. Then they set the cross upright, so he dangled up there where even the shortest person in the crowd could see him writhing this way and that.
Can you imagine people doing such a thing to a person?
No problem. That's entertainment. Ask the devout Roman Catholic Mel Gibson, who, as an act of piety, has just made a fortune with a movie about how Jesus was tortured. Never mind what Jesus said.
During the reign of King Henry the Eighth, founder of the Church of England, he had a counterfeiter boiled alive in public. Show biz again.
Mel Gibson's next movie should be The Counterfeiter. Box office records will again be broken.
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
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And what did the great British historian Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794 A.D., have to say about the human record so far? He said, "History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."
The same can be said about this morning's edition of the New York Times.
The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, wrote, "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."
So there's another barrel of laughs from literature. Camus died in an automobile accident. His dates? 1913-1960 A.D.
Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible and The Charge of the Light Brigade.
But I have to say this in defense of humankind: No matter in what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got there. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these crazy games going on, which could make you act crazy, even if you weren't crazy to begin with. Some of the games that were already going on when you got here were love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf and girls' basketball.
Even crazier than golf, though, is modern American politics, where, thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.
Actually, this same sort of thing happened to the people of England generations ago, and Sir William Gilbert, of the radical team of Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote these words for a song about it back then:
I often think it's comical
How nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative.
Which one are you in this country? It's practically a law of life that you have to be one or the other? If you aren't one or the other, you might as well be a doughnut.
If some of you still haven't decided, I'll make it easy for you.
If you want to take my guns away from me, and you're all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you're for the poor, you're a liberal.
If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you're a conservative.
What could be simpler?
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My government's got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.
One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W. Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed or tiddley-poo or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 41. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.
Other drunks have seen pink elephants.
And do you know why I think he is so pissed off at Arabs? They invented algebra. Arabs also invented the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which nobody else had ever had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals.
We're spreading democracy, are we? Same way European explorers brought Christianity to the Indians, what we now call "Native Americans."
How ungrateful they were! How ungrateful are the people of Baghdad today.
So let's give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That'll teach bin Laden a lesson he won't soon forget. Hail to the Chief.
That chief and his cohorts have as little to do with Democracy as the Europeans had to do with Christianity. We the people have absolutely no say in whatever they choose to do next. In case you haven't noticed, they've already cleaned out the treasury, passing it out to pals in the war and national security rackets, leaving your generation and the next one with a perfectly enormous debt that you'll be asked to repay.
Nobody let out a peep when they did that to you, because they have disconnected every burglar alarm in the Constitution: The House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the FBI, the free press (which, having been embedded, has forsaken the First Amendment) and We the People.
About my own history of foreign substance abuse. I've been a coward about heroin and cocaine and LSD and so on, afraid they might put me over the edge. I did smoke a joint of marijuana one time with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, just to be sociable. It didn't seem to do anything to me, one way or the other, so I never did it again. And by the grace of God, or whatever, I am not an alcoholic, largely a matter of genes. I take a couple of drinks now and then, and will do it again tonight. But two is my limit. No problem.
I am of course notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.
But I'll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver's license! Look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut.
And my car back then, a Studebaker, as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused and addictive and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.
When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won't be any more of those. Cold turkey.
Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn't like TV news, is it?
Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.
And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on.
reprinted by permission, http://www.inthesetimes.com/
About In These Times
In These Times is a national, biweekly magazine of news and opinion published in Chicago. For 27 years, In These Times has provided groundbreaking coverage of the labor movement, environment, feminism, grassroots politics, minority communities and the media. In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter.
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EWING STREET TIMES
- By Popular Demand, some pics of Uncle Donny as a yout'.
One of the Great Unknown Bands of the 60's and 70's was Ewing Street Times. The band evolved from me and Thom Harris at the Earl of Old Town in Chicago. We added Michael Mashkes. Then we added Judy Hauff, who left us to form Rotary Connection over at Chess/Cadet. We added Skip Haynes, who left us to form Haynes (something) and Jeremiah. We went on an extended road trip headed ultimately toward The Flick Coffeehouse in Coconut Grove FL (because that's where our friends Spanky And Our Gang told us we ought to go). We added Billy Berosini. Thom Harris left. We added Don Dunaway. Dunaway left. We added John Vandiver.
We left the Grove and went to Good Karma Productions in Kansas City. Billy Berosini left, and is now with the new Grateful Dead. We added Shake Russell. I left. John, Michael and Shake went to Texas, and I went back to the Grove. John and Michael are now deceased, and Shake is doing very well, especially as a songwriter, in Texas. Me? I paint, write, make candles, garden and enter sweepstakes. One of these days I'm gonna make a big score.
These pics were lifted from Joanna Vandiver's tribute site to her Dad, because I don't have a scanner at the moment.
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FDA TO CRACK DOWN ON SUPPLEMENT ANDRO
by Lauran Neergaard, AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is cracking down on the steroid-like supplement made famous by baseball's Mark McGwire, telling companies Thursday to quit selling androstenedione unless they can prove it's not dangerous.
//I must say, that is an incredibly stupid thing to say. You can't prove that something is not dangerous. Science doesn't work that way. The burden of proof is on the people who say that it IS dangerous. If the FDA really said this, I wouldn't be surprised. After all, what is the FDA? A rubberstamp, paid tool of the pharmaceutical industry, all of whom should be arrested and indicted as Enemies Of The People. This is NOT to say that I think OTC sale of androstenedione is a good thing. I'm just saying, AGAIN, that the FDA is inept.//
Commonly called andro, the product is a steroid precursor - the body uses it to make testosterone.
That means it poses the same health risks as directly using an anabolic steroid, the Food and Drug Administration says in warnings telling 23 manufacturers to cease their production.
"Anyone who takes these products in sufficient quantities to build muscle or improve performance is putting himself or herself at risk for serious long-term and potentially irreversible health consequences," said FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan.
The FDA's newest crackdown comes as it is facing a legal challenge to its pending ban on another controversial dietary supplement, ephedra. That herbal stimulant, widely used for weight loss, is linked to 155 deaths and dozens more heart attacks and strokes.
//Ephedra is called Ma-Huang in China and is widely used there. It was never intended for weight loss and is always compounded with other ingredients by Chinese herbalists who understand its dangerous potential. Its abuse in the USA has nothing to do with its intrinsic value as medicine, but the FDA, like the DEA, is political and useless to the Public, preferring Banning over Education. See Ma-Huang.//
The maker of the Stacker 2 brand of ephedra supplements, NVE Pharmaceuticals, filed suit this week in federal court in New Jersey seeking to block FDA's sales ban, which was set to begin April 12.
"We're confident that we do have a clear legal basis" for the ban, FDA spokesman Brad Stone said Thursday.
Anabolic steroids, which build muscle, are controlled substances. But andro - because it is a precursor, not the steroid itself - has long been marketed as a dietary supplement, selling over the counter. U.S. law lets dietary supplements sell with little oversight to ensure they're safe.
But the FDA is citing a seldom-used provision of that law that defines as a dietary supplement natural ingredients that were on the market before 1994 - and says manufacturers must prove that any new ingredients are safe before selling them as supplements.
Andro wasn't on the market in 1994 and thus its makers failed to follow the law's safety provision, FDA contends.
The FDA expects its action to at least temporarily halt andro sales. Meanwhile, Congress is considering legislation sponsored by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., that would permanently end over-the-counter sales of andro, as well as a new steroid named THG, and subject them to the same prescription restrictions as apply to anabolic steroids.
Andro's use skyrocketed after McGwire said he used it in 1998, the year he hit a record-setting 70 home runs for the St. Louis Cardinals. He has said he later quit the supplements.
Medical studies show andro does raise testosterone above normal levels. Side effects of elevated testosterone include acne, baldness, and a drop in the so-called good cholesterol that could lead to heart disease.
Federal health officials are especially concerned about children who use andro, especially if they're still in puberty. While they didn't have statistics on pre-teen use, federal drug-monitoring surveys suggest one out of 40 high school seniors and one out of 50 10th graders were using andro in 2001, the latest data available.
reprinted by permission from http://www.iconocast.com/H/Health3_News11_04/Health5.htm
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The following was sent to me in an email, and I don't believe a word of it. No way this is true. I did not write this. This is not my work. Please don't have me killed. I voted for George Bush. Al Gore is a Goober. I hate Saddam. I support I mean I do not support Kerry. I live in Montana. WAY, WAY back there. In Montana.
RESUME: GEORGE W. BUSH
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE Law Enforcement:
I was arrested in Kennebunkport ME in 1976, for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pleaded guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been "lost" and is not available.
Military:
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.
College:
I graduated from Yale University with a low C average.
PAST WORK EXPERIENCE I ran for U.S. Congress and lost. I began my career in the oil business in Midland, Texas, in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock. I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. With the help of my father and our friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected Governor of Texas.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union. During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America. I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money. I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American history. With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President after losing by over 500,000 votes.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record. I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per week. I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury. I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history. I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period. I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period. I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market. During my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.
I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history. My "poorest millionaire," Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her. I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President. I am the all-time U.S. And world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations. My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. History, Enron. My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.
I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip- offs in history. I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed. I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history. I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts. I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any other President in U.S. history. I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States government.
I've broken more international treaties than any other President in U.S. history. I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission. I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law. I refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. "prisoners of war" detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Conventions. I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election). I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any President since the advent of television. I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period.
After taking off the entire month of August, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history. I garnered the most sympathy for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. The most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history. I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind. I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, pre-emptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. citizens, and the world community.
I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families - in wartime. In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends. I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security. I am supporting development of a nuclear "Tactical Bunker Buster," a WMD. I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden [sic] to justice.
RECORDS AND REFERENCES All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public view. All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view. All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
PLEASE CONSIDER MY EXPERIENCE WHEN VOTING IN 2004.
Uncle Donny comments, directly from his home WAY WAY back in Montana: "Well, this is just ridiculous. I live in Montana."
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HEROES
- Good Publicity for Inept Governments In Unpopular Wars
Ira Hayes
What do these names mean to you?
The Pentagon, The White House, the Joint Chiefs...need heroes. Heroes, even National Heroes, are created by publicists. There are real heroes, and there are reluctant heroes, and there are poster boy heroes.
The lifeguard who saves the little boy from drowning is performing a heroic act and we love him for it, but this is not a hero; this is a professional doing his job.
The firefighters who douse the flames and save the screaming children are performing wonderful and heroic acts and we love them for it, but these are not heroes; they're doing what were trained to do and what they get paid to do.
Soldiers who die in wars are sometimes heroes and sometimes not heroes; they bought the whole package when they raised their right arms.
All people are capable of heroic acts. And all people are capable of despicable acts. Many people, if they live long enough, discover in a shining moment of insight that they are capable of both.
Symbolic heroes are just another kind of begging bowl.
My heart breaks for these boys who are dying for no good reason, and my heart breaks that their minds are getting bent. But it pisses me off when the government uses people like that unfortunate football player to encourage other youngsters to go fight in their wars.
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NOW READ THIS:
Bush's Blind Hydrogen Vision
by John Gartner, AlterNetChristianity and Buddhism, Genesis versus Science
Death By Medicine
by Dr. Gary Null, Dr. Carolyn Dean, Dr. Martin Feldman, Dr. Debora Rasio, Dr. Dorothy Smithsee related OpinionSoup article: AMA
Organic: Friend or Faux?
by Amanda Griscom, Grist MagazineBack to Top
OZ BACH
- Of Spanky and Our Gang, NOT Bach Flower Remedies
Recently I have received several emails from people who surfed and found articles about my old band, Ewing Street Times, and about one of our 60's home bases, The Flick Coffeehouse. I found it curious, because the emails all arrived within two weeks of each other, and because I myself had recently been surfing for this old stuff. Must be the Full Moon.
On one of my searches I found The Flick referenced to spankyandourgang.com, and I surfed on in, to the page about an old acquaintance, Oz Bach. Oz was the bassist and co-founder of this late-60's group, along with Nigel Pickering (Freddie Williams) and, of course, Elaine (Spanky) MacFarland. I met Oz the first night he and Nigel played with Spanky, whom I already knew, at Mother Blues on Wells St. in Chicago. This was sometime in 1966. Later they would add my friend Malcolm Hale. Malcolm died in 1968, which was really the beginning of the end of Spanky and Our Gang.
spankyandourgang.com is maintained by Oz's widow, Sharon, with whom I am having a wonderful exchange of emails, remembering all the people that we both know or knew, although we didn't know each other until yesterday. Oz died in 1998 of cancer, after receiving the shabbiest treatment from the VA you will ever hear of. Please go to http://www.spankyandourgang.com/ozbach/ and read all about it.
You'll find a little more about Oz and a lot of others who played at The Flick, at George Blackwell's Flick Page.
From Oz Bach's General Bringdown: "Every time you come around...general bringdown."
For more on Coconut Grove FL in those good old days, read my Coconut Grove article.
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That great Father of the Methodist Church, John Wesley, said this: "Earn all you can; save all you can; give all you can," which is difficult to find fault with, but which leaves a lot of wiggle room to the generation who struggled with the definition of "is," and who can kick the phrase "all you can" around like a semantic football. This financial philosophy was influenced as much by Wesley's religion as it was by his work ethic. Judeo-Christian? Yes. But basically just good, common-sense advice. Perhaps it would be more fitting in today's world to say "all you choose to earn, all you want to save, all you wish to give."
That great American Ben Franklin advised using these keywords: "Industry, Frugality, Prudence." Again, no argument - but this is rather general and generally arcane to today's dumbed-down America. In Ben's time it may have been easier to be industrious, frugal and prudent. There was no internet then, and people didn't have the optional distraction of seeking the latest on Martha Stewart from the National Enquirer or tuning in Fox's alternately chauvinistic, then whining, newscasts.
I've read great works by great financial philosophers, and one of my favorites is George Clason's classic The Richest Man in Babylon. Here is an edited excerpt.
PART OF ALL YOU EARN IS YOURS TO KEEP! 1. For each $10 you earn, spend only nine. Invest one. Put aside at least 10% of your income as you receive it. Pay yourself first.
2. Budget the 9/10 of your income that is to be spent. Some expenditures will be nearly constant (house payment, etc.); others will be flexible. In some months, if you can (due to newly-increased discipline and focus of purpose), save some of your budgeted 90% expenditures and put that savings in an investment savings account separate from (1) above. Use this savings to cover unbudgeted emergencies. Don't touch (1). Anything that threatens your budget and you can live without, cut it loose.
As your income increases, try to keep your "necessary expenses" from growing. Succinctly, "Budget your expenses so that you have money to pay for necessities, enjoyments and worthwhile desires, without spending more than 9/10 of your earnings."
If you have existing old debts, distribute your paycheck this way: first, pay yourself 10%. Next, reserve 20% to distribute to those to whom you are indebted. Then, live on the remaining 70%.
Save back 10% first; the other 90% of your income is to pay for the necessities of life: rent or (preferred) house payment; food; clothing; spouse and children; medical; etc. You may devise a flexible budget for the disbursement of the 90%, i.e., 1/4 for your lodging is a good rule of thumb for lodging.
Don't become miserly, but you may soon become disciplined enough to save and invest more than 10% of your earnings. Pay your bills, but pay yourself first. If you have old bills, live on 70% and pay 20% to old bills.
3. Invest the 10% of your earnings that you have put aside. Don't put your 10% in a sock. Invest it. Make it earn more money for you. Reinvest the earnings.
4. Invest only where your principal is safe, where you may reclaim it if you wish, and where it will certainly increase at a fair rate. Consult wise persons who are experienced in the area of investment you wish to pursue. Beware risky investments; consult experts. May I say that again? Go to experts for advice on investing, i.e., see a successful real-estate person for advice on realy estate. Do not ask a bricklayer for advice on precious gems. Beware investments promising usurious rates of return. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
5. OWN YOUR OWN HOME.
6. Insure the protection and care of your family should you die, and provide for the needs of your old age. Buy insurance for your family's protection should you die, and provide for your old age.
7. "Before accomplishment comes desire." Let your desire be strong, simple and definite. "General desires are but weak longings." Wishing "to be rich" is of little purpose. Wishing for $100,000 is a tangible desire that can be pressed to fulfillment. Desires defeat their own purpose if they are too many, too confusing, or beyond your training to accomplish.
8. Perfect yourself in your calling. Have more interest in your work, more concentration upon your task, and more persistence in your effort. Keep up with new advances and discoveries in your field.
9. Pay your debts promptly; don't buy something you can't pay for.
10. Take good care of your family, so that they may think well of you and speak well of you.
11. Make a Will of Record.
12. Within reasonable limits, be charitable to those downtrodden or in misfortune. Be thoughtful and kind to your dear ones.
13. To sum up: "Cultivate your own powers, study and become wiser, become more skillful, and let your actions show that you RESPECT YOURSELF.
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PATIENTS MAY HAVE GOTTEN WRONG HIV RESULTS
from the Associated Press
AP reported earlier this year that more than 400 patients at Maryland General Hospital might have received incorrect HIV and hepatitis test results during a 14-month period ending in August, 2003.
Some patients might have been told they were HIV-negative when in fact they were positive - and vice versa - and the hospital failed to notify the patients of the problem, according to Nelson J. Sabatini, secretary of Maryland's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
"I think this is unconscionable behavior: people not being told about the status of their tests," Sabatini said.
In addition to the HIV reports, false reports were made for Hepatitis C, for which some patients were tested. Hep-C, as it is called by the people who have it, can cause a chronic liver infection that could eventually lead to liver failure and cancer.
Acting on a complaint apparently filed by a former hospital employee, state health officials discovered in January that the hospital's laboratory personnel overrode controls in the testing equipment that showed the results might be in error, then mailed them to patients anyway.
Timothy D. Miller, President of Maryland General, said hospital executives "knew nothing about the problem" until they were notified by the state in late January.
"We want to make this right," Miller said.
How do you propose to do that, Timmy? Call Lassie?
Miller reminds me of The Chad Mitchell Trio's 60's hit The I Was Not A Nazi Polka. And Sergeant Schulta: I SEE NOTHING! I KNOW NOTHING!
The testing problem affected about 460 patients, most of whom were tested for HIV. President Miller promised that efforts were underway to notify the patients and urge them to return to the hospital for a free re-test.
He had to use the word "free?" OH, THE ARROGANCE OF DOCTORS AND HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATORS! Like anybody's going to return to this hospital.
"Hey! They put my life in danger, but it's FREE!"
State inspectors found that over a 14-month period ending in August, 10 to 15 percent of the HIV tests performed might have been inaccurate. I would put it another way, instead of talking about percentages and de-personalizing the problem. I would say "(x-number of) PEOPLE's lives were endangered by inept hospital bureacrats and MORONS in the lab."
By the way, my dear friends and readers, this kind of crap happens all the time.
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WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?
- A Parting Shot
GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here.
AL GORE: I invented the chicken. I invented the road. Therefore, the chicken crossing the road represented the application of these two different functions of government in a new, reinvented way designed to bring greater services to the American people.
COLIN POWELL: Now at the left of the screen, you clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.
HANZ BLIX: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed access to the other side of the road.
MOHAMMED ALDOURI (Iraq ambassador): The chicken did not cross the road. This is a complete fabrication. We don't even have a chicken.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.
RALPH NADER: The chicken's habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by unchecked industrialist greed. The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed under the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.
PAT BUCHANAN: To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American.
RUSH LIMBAUGH: I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I'll bet it was getting a government grant to cross the road, and I'll bet someone out there is already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing-the-road syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of this can real Americans take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars, and when I say tax dollars, I'm talking about your money, money the government took from you to build roads for chickens to cross.
MARTHA STEWART: No one called to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the farmer's market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.
JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other side." That's what they call it - the other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other side."
DR. SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed, I've not been told!
ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die. In the rain. Alone.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.
GRANDPA: In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.
BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its life-long dream of crossing the road.
JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens crossing roads in peace.
ARISTOTLE: It is in the nature of chickens to cross roads.
KARL MARX: It was an historical inevitability.
VOLTAIRE: I may not agree with what the chicken did, but I will defend to the death its right to do it.
RONALD REAGAN: What chicken?
CAPTAIN KIRK: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.
FOX MULDER: You saw it cross the road with your own eyes! How many more chickens have to cross before you believe it?
SIGMUND FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.
BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken 2004, which will not only cross roads, but will also lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook - and Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of eChicken.
ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken?
BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken. What do you mean by chicken? Could you define chicken, please?
THE BIBLE: And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.
COLONEL SANDERS: I missed one?
DONNY SAYS: This humorous interlude has been making the rounds on the www since about 1996, I believe, including here: http://www.rangelMD.com/. Additions and revisions have been made along the way. Feel free to send us your own.
OpinionSoup is published by Don Harthcock. OS #28 ©June, 2004, Don Harthcock, OpinionSoup.com. Portions of OpinionSoup may be reproduced on your site with proper credit and a link. This instruction supercedes all previous prohibitions. Taping OS to refrigerators, posting on bulletin boards & emailing to friends is waycool, highly-recommended, and much appreciated.
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