Month: October 2023

Everybody gets to meet the Grim Reaper when it’s time.

Hopefully, the deceased was lucky to have enjoyed a very full and rewarding life surrounded by relatives and friends who loved him. The most one can hope for is that the final reckoning will not have been preceded by months or years of physical wasting and pain.

My father was one of those very lucky people who appeared healthy but simply died in his sleep one night (heart attack?) curled up around my mom. They call this benevolent passing a “King’s Death” because the victim doesn’t suffer, and his loved ones are spared the heart-wrenching drama of watching a human being withering away in pain.

How can I order up one of those King’s Deaths?

A few States allow euthanasia (i.e. legal suicide) for those doomed folks who are terminally sick and in miserable condition. It seems to me that this is the right thing to do when appropriate. Who knows better than the patient the level of misery that he is enduring? When there is no hope on the horizon, and life is not fun anymore, shouldn’t it be his call on the time and manner of death?

Why not? Why should some doctor, lawyer, politician, or priest make these decisions for people they hardly know?

I raise this morbid subject today because I have a close friend/neighbor who is very depressed by a mystery ailment that has reduced his life to lying in bed or sitting in a reclining chair waiting for the next horrible spell of dizziness and vertigo. We go for a short walk each morning (his medical condition allowing) and every day he mentions the prospect of suicide because, “I can’t stand living like this. It’s not living.”

I agree.

My friend, who recently turned 70 years old, has lived a very full and rewarding life. He’s had a good marriage, sired some fine children, and enjoyed a long and fulfilling career. He’s been retired for fifteen years and has taken that opportunity to hike in the mountains, play guitar and sing at community events, and ride his bike long distances. He loves the outdoors, or at least he did before his medical condition precluded him from driving a car, riding a bike, or hiking in the local mountains. He loves music but can’t sit in an upright chair for any length of time.

He can’t do anything anymore except lay about his home waiting for the onslaught of another dizzy/vertigo spell. Doctors have been unable to diagnose his problem or afford him medical help. It is a crappy way to end the very fine life he has lived.

On our walks each day, he always brings up the subject of suicide. Today, he wondered aloud if there was any way he could get ahold of fentanyl… so he could self-administer a King’s Death.

Jeez, I know this friend of mine is miserable and super-depressed and resigned to leaving this mortal coil before he is shuffled off to a hospice facility to wither away. But should I (or any of his other true friends) help in any way? It would probably be the truest test of friendship, but such “assistance” might produce some heavy guilt down the road. And/or a legal problem, to boot.

I think that he and his wife need to work together on this project when it comes to that.

I’m almost 76 years young now and, certainly, my life is also winding down. I’m still relatively healthy but I can no longer do most of the things that used to “float my boat” like running, golfing, bowling, riding a horse, surfing, playing pool, and skiing. The loss of coordination and strength has really become evident during the past ten years.

Gee, it was only eight years ago that I shot in the 70’s in golf and bowled a couple of 300 games, and maybe five years ago that I climbed Mt. Whitney. Nowadays, I must satisfy myself with short hikes, walking the dogs, traveling in my RV, and doing my blog.

Low energy activities for a low energy guy.

But at least I am not suffering from some depressing physical malady or two. My poor wife Charlie has all manner of medical issues and needs to take a couple of dozen pills a day just to function. I don’t know how she does it. She’s got some major stomach surgery coming up in 30 days, the poor gal.

Who knows how long we have ‘til the End of the Line? My mom lived to almost 89 and her mom lived to 90, I believe. All of my three siblings are still alive and kicking. All of Charlie’s siblings are still alive and relatively well and her mom lived into her 80’s. We could live that long.

Neither one of us wants to live to be an old fossil who drools all day and can’t remember what he had for breakfast. My mom was a wreck when she died; it was very sad.

Charlie and I are celebrating our 50^th year together this year. We’ve had a great life together, enjoyed fulfilling careers, seen the world, raised four fine sons, and had great times with interesting people that we’ve met. We are now living comfortably in retirement, enjoying the hell out of our home and our three Boston Terrier dogs.

Whenever the time comes for either or both of us, we will have lived and loved, enjoyed our time to the fullest, and maybe left this world a bit better off.

I hope my friend can find the peace that he needs and deserves.

Charlie and I watch a lot of crime docudramas on TV which draw attention to the (unfortunately) ugly underbelly of American society.

Suspects and perpetrators of crimes who are brought “down to headquarters” to be interviewed/interrogated often reveal their ignorance of proper English. Typically, the grammar-challenged citizens are urban street people, druggies, thieves, and gang members, but rural America’s redneck population is well-represented, too. Lot’s of horrible crimes are committed in the Bible Belt by God-fearing White folks. Opioid addiction is big there, and leads to lots of robberies and break-ins. Marital discord also leads to crimes of violence.

One common denominator in this sub-set of society is poverty. Most of the folks who end up at the police station are desperate people who have resorted to desperate measures to feed themselves and their families or to satisfy their drug habit. The other commonality of this group of neer-do-wells is limited education. Whether they lacked educational opportunity or misused that which they were given is unknown, but it seems that most of these miscreants weren’t paying much attention in English class.

Here are a few gems from a sample of police interrogations:

“I ain’t did that!”

“Somebody dead and killed was there…”

“Her and her Mom”

“Nobody had no gun”

“They done went…”

“We might could get…”

“No one has came forward” (a police officer said this!)

“I been got rid of that car”

“I been knowin’ him for five years”

“Don’t nobody have a key to my car”

“He was him”

“He ain’t want to go”

“Everyone knowed each other”

I can imagine one of these citizens, who wants to straighten out his life, going to a job interview, speaking this kind of bastardized English, and being shown the door… because hiring the individual would bring ridicule on the company.

Sure, the guy might be hired as a janitor or dishwasher, something in the back end of the business where he won’t be seen by the public. But is that kind of job really going to raise the fellow “up by the bootstraps’? Probably not; he’d still have to commit crimes after work hours to feed his family and pay the bills.

In the inner city neighborhoods and redneck boondocks that produce illiterate citizens like this, I wonder how much admonition is given by teachers to students about “talking stupid” and how that is going to minimize opportunity down the road of life. First impressions are critical in social intercourse, and someone who expresses themselves in crude English (be it “country talk”, “Ebonics”, “Spanglish” or whatever) basically paints a Scarlett Letter on their forehead revealing the bearer to be a non-serious person.

Of course, in the “hood” or out in the “boonies”, talking like this is probably necessary to gain “cred” among the low-life, criminal set. A guy speaking the King’s English would probably mark himself as an undercover cop or, at least, not a serious player in the criminal community. He would be suspect, for sure.

A fellow who has served prison time and plans on toeing the line after release is, unfortunately, going to be bringing his crude language skills with him when he re-enters society and tries to better himself.   

Anything more than menial work/manual labor will be almost impossible to achieve without going back to school to… re-learn the things that he determined weren’t worth the bother back in grade school. That’s a tough row to hoe, and is one of the reasons that recidivism (felons returning to criminal activity) is so high.

“Imma be honest wit ya”

There has never been a time in my adult life that I have been more disgusted at national politics, with each day revealing more about the disfunctional mess we have in Washington D.C.

We’ve got legislators who are so old that they have a hard time putting cogent thoughts together, standing up, or keeping out of the hospital. Senator Dianne Feinstein recently died at age 90 and… cast a vote in the Senate the day she died. Nancy Pelosi, the ex-Speaker of the House and still a Congresswoman from California, is 83-years-old and … running again for Congress! Republican Minority Leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, who is a spry 81-year-old fuddy duddy, has recently experienced “freezing up” (on several occasions) while making a public statement. Just as well, as what he was about to say was probably stupid.

They are but a few of the couple dozen Representatives and Senators who are more than 80-years-old. Well meaning people, I’m sure, but most of them would be better off (as would the Nation) if they traded in their D.C. perks for shuffleboard at the local Senior center or “greeter” jobs at Walmart.

What is it about OLD politicians hanging on to the Federal gravy train until they are too decrepit to get out of bed? How about giving the younger folks a chance to fuck up the Nation? Why are we potentially looking at two old farts (Biden and Trump) running for President again in 2024? Biden seems confused and stumbles a lot, while Trump says so many stupid things that it’s obvious that his brain is totally mush.

Can’t we just put them out to pasture? Help us, Jesus!

Seriously, isn’t Mister Magoo available??

Of course, it’s not just the old fogies who are doing their best to screw up our democracy. As in most years, American voters, in their wisdom, have put into office a slew of totally useless “legislators” whose primary objective in D.C. is to get rich off of lobbyists and make damn fools of themselves any time they see a camera or someone puts a microphone in front of their face. It’s a fucking clown show, each day producing another elected imbecile saying or doing ridiculous things just to get attention while spending zero time actually trying to solve the Nation’s problems. Legislators, who are there to address critical problems though the development of laws and approval of budgets, spend most of their day shooting spitwads at each other in the Capitol.

Bozo would fit into the troupe.

How about Congressman George Santos of New York? He’s the gay guy (who dresses in drag in his spare time) who hasn’t told one truth since he campaigned for office. Everything about him is a lie (he’s a Trump “mini me”) and he has recently been indicted for all manner of fraudulent fundraising, theft, and misrepresentation. He should have been expelled from the House months ago, but his Republican vote is more important to Congressional leadership than the shame he brings on the institution.

Have you heard about Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado? She’s a legislator who is often on TV invariably spouting right-wing nonsense, heckling the President at his State of the Union Address, and advancing pro-gun and anti-vaccine initiatives. She recently embarrassed herself by: (1) Attending a playhouse presentation of “Beetlejuice” where she vaped, which is prohibited in the theater; (2) chewed out in coarse language a patron who complained; (3) loudly sang during the performance; (4) groped her date’s junk during the performance while he manually checked out her melons; (5) got thrown out of the theater by management while shouting “Don’t you know who I am?!”; (6) Denied any inappropriate behavior until in-theater video surveillance caught her in the lie; (7) then minimized her actions by stating that the incident was a “lapse in judgment” that didn’t represent her “moral values”. Interestingly, Congresswoman Beobert makes a political living by complaining that America’s “family values” are going down the toilet. She should know.

Oh, boy, Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, seems to have slimed his way to the top of the D.C. swamp! He’s currently under indictment for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars as bribes (“No way! In our Nation’s capital?) and for acting as a paid agent of the Egyptian government. Should he step down? Of course. Will he? Not a  chance while there’s still opportunity for another grift.

Speaking about another shameless grifter who should relinquish his Federal job, how about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas? This judge, who enjoys a LIFETIME appointment to the highest court in the land, and who is the most extreme, far right “Conservative” on the Court, has been exposed as a puppet directed by some of his uber rich Republican donors. He’s enjoyed lavish trips at home and abroad, courtesy of these billionaire political manipulators. He’s either too stupid to understand or just plain corrupt. His wife, by the way, is an EXTREME right-wing operative who was intimately involved in Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement which culminated in the Capitol Riot. This married couple will leave a lasting stain on democracy in our Nation.

This past week has found America somewhat absorbed in the drama around choosing a Speaker of the House of Representatives, a politician who will be second in line to the President should the Geezer in Chief expire while in office.

Astoundingly, the primary contestants for the job are are “stolen election” Trump sycophants, corrupt politicians who helped, or at least looked the other way, when the 2021 insurrection went down. Why our Congress should be led by individuals who actively worked to engineer a bloodless coup (which turned out not to be bloodless) to “correct” the will of the people… is a mystery to me. Did these individuals (along with an additional 140 plus Republican Congressmen) even read their oath of office after being elected? As I recall, their job was to “support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic”, which would presumably include giving no support to the lynch mob that ransacked our Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

Almost three years after that shameful episode in American history, about half of Republican Party elected officials in Washington D.C. will not admit publicly that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Why, when the whole world knows the truth? Because the ex-President has their testicles in his mitts, and he knows how and when to squeeze (as in… there is an election coming in 2024). “Play ball or I’ll primary you!”

The fight for the Speaker of the House job (what imbecile would want such a post with the Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House?) has deteriorated into a Republican intra-Party mudwrestling match, further demonstrating that the G.O.P. has gone completely off the rails thanks to the toxic “campaign” that Trump is conducting to bully Republicans in general and poison jury pools selected to evaluate and cast judgment on the ex-President’s nefarious activities.

Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio is the latest nominee of the G.O.P. to lead the House. He’s having difficulty corralling the votes, probably because he is one of the most divisive and destructive politicians in Washington D.C., a guy who was intimately involved in the Capitol Riot machinations and remains a dedicated Trumpist to this day. Jordan is uniquely unsuited to the job he seeks, as the Speaker is the guy who is supposed to work with both political parties to craft legislation that is acceptable to all Americans. Congressman Jordan is not “into” that kind of governing; he’s a wrecking ball kind-of-guy, not a diplomat carrying an olive branch. If he is elected Speaker, the D.C. shit show will get markedly worse in the coming year.

Send in the clowns.

Jordan may not be able to get the votes he needs, as every Democrat will oppose his candidacy and maybe a dozen of his Republican brethren don’t like the cut of his jib. He may be able to bribe a half dozen of the holdouts with juicy perks and assignments (should he be elected), but if even five of the holdouts continue to hold their nose, Jordan’s campaign is toast.

Then what?

Probably some schmuck who no one has heard of will get stuck with the thankless job. Most likely it will be one of the 147 “stolen election” idiots who continue to kiss Trump’s ring, but a Congressman who has been less divisive than pitbull Jim Jordan.

That would rule out Republican flotsam such as Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, a raging “Karen” who embarrasses herself each day by spewing Q Anon nonsense and Florida’s Matt Gaetz, a nincompoop of the highest order that no one in D.C.(except Donald Trump) can abide. And, of course, whack jobs like Paul Gosar of Arizona and Chip Roy of Texas, who daily embarrass themselves and the Nation with idiotic public statements that seem to be lifted directly from Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”.

We don’t need Nazis or skinheads crafting national policy, thank you.

There has been some mention of giving the Speaker job to (drum roll, please!) the ex-President himself. It would be perfectly legal to do so, as long as the votes are there. The Democrats might consider helping out, as it would put the 2024 campaigner in the public spotlight, further revealing his ineptness in all manners governmental. Between his many serious legal battles (in D.C., Georgia, New York and Florida) and the Speaker’s job, the self-avowed “smartest man in any room” would be kept pretty busy.

I say, “Send in that clown!”, he loves humiliation.

I had cataract surgery on both of my eyes over the past couple of weeks.

This was something that my Walmart optician recommended when I completed my annual eye exam in September. This was similar to the advice that I got from the previous Walmart optician last year, which I ignored because we were leaving town for 3 months.

Both opticians recommended the same ophthalmologist: Dr. Snow Slade of St. George, Utah. (I’m sure they get a kick-back for each referral.) Dr. Slade is the same guy who did Charlie’s cataract surgeries, and she was very impressed with him.

Dr. Slade examined me and recommended that I get the generic lens replacement in my right eye (100 percent covered by Medicare and my secondary insurance) and a fancier lens for my left eye (a Torric model that cost us $1,600). The surgeon told me that, after the two operations, I would see everything at a distance well but might need “cheater” glasses for reading stuff on my computer and cell phone.

“Sign me up!”, I said.

Doctor Slade does many of these each surgeries each day in a highly-choreographed “assembly line” fashion at a surgery center up in St. George. The patient is in pre-op for about 30 minutes, the operation takes about 20 minutes, and then it’s back to post-op for another 30 minutes. It is very professionally done.

Anyway, I did the surgeries within a week of each other (his idea) and came through in good shape. There was no pain or discomfort whatsoever during the operations or afterwards. You can see immediately after the surgery; no eye patch required. A regimen of eye drops is the only post-op treatment… easy peasy.

It’s probably too early to say for sure, but the result thus far is not what I expected. Colors are brighter, of course. However, there is still a significant difference in vision between my eyes and it seems as though the predicted result was the opposite of what Dr. Snow promised: I can now see very good up close (within a foot or so) while everything beyond 12 inches is blurry.

I am functioning now without glasses, which is a good thing, but I don’t care for the blurry distance vision beyond a few feet. I can see, of course, but I’m not comfortable with fuzzy images. Obviously, I can’t expect to see like a teenager, but I was hoping for a better result.

I have a follow-up visit scheduled with my Walmart optician this week where he will check out what Dr. Slade has wrought… and see what else he can sell me.

It would be a shame if I must resort to wearing prescription sunglasses when I’m driving around town. Right now, I couldn’t pass an eye exam at the local DMV if my life depended on it.

We will “see” how this drama plays out.

The various courtroom dramas that former President Trump is experiencing in recent days are dominating the network news cycle and podcasts on YouTube by legal experts.

Mr. Trump and his attorneys are exhausting every nook and cranny of legal textbooks and court precedents for some glimmer of hope, some magic bullet to excuse his criminal behavior and render him immune to prosecution. Or, at least, delay the proceedings until after the 2024 elections, in the hopes that he will be re-elected and can somehow squelch those pesky court cases or simply pardon himself.

His chances of doing so are possibly 50-50 in the Mar-a-Lago “top secret” documents case, as the judge in that matter is a Trump appointee and is very obviously trying to help him out.

This is not the case in the New York civil trial against the Trump Organization (for chronic business fraud), nor in the Georgia election extortion case nor in the Washington D.C. case involving the 1/6/21 Capitol Riot matter.

Trump attorneys have recently rolled out a generic defense of their client’s tawdry actions by claiming that, as President, he enjoyed immunity from prosecution and, thus, as an ex-President, continues to do so.

Unfortunately for Donald Trump, the U.S. Constitution grants no such immunity. The “I was just doing my job” excuse can hardly apply to strong-arming several Georgia officials to change the votes that had been cast sufficient that Trump could squeak out an electoral victory. Ditto for inciting a mob to attack the Capitol Building and delay the Congressional certification of the 2020 election.

As far as I can determine, a President has no official role in the electoral process, a responsibility that is Constitutionally assigned to the States.

Should a State flub up its responsibility (like botching an election, which Trump asserted after the 2020 election), the Department of Justice might intervene if Federal election laws were violated. Trump and his crew tried to claim this after the election, however no proof was ever provided despite many recounts and audits. In fact, Trump’s own Attorney General Bill Barr publicly asserted (before the Capitol Riot) that the 2020 elections had been clean of fraud.

Thus, the President did not have a Constitutional duty or an excuse to involve himself in the electoral process. He got involved because he was defeated by Joe Biden and was mad about it.

There is no Presidential immunity from doing criminal acts, particularly if such acts do not fall within the job description.

Trump is also raising another lame defense: that because the Senate failed to convict him in his second impeachment trial, then therefore he is innocent of the crimes he is now being prosecuted for relative to the Capitol Riot escapade.

That excuse does not hold water, either.

Impeachment is a political undertaking, not a criminal trial. It is a Constitutionally-provided remedy for removing a President from office for “high crimes and misdemeanors” like, for example, attempting to extort the Ukrainian President to “find dirt” on Joe Biden during the 2020 election campaign. The fact that Trump did the crime was not in dispute, as there were witnesses to the phone conversation. The Senate failed to convict the President simply because there were more Republican Senators than Democratic Senators in the “jury”.

(That impeachment is a political tool, and not a judicial process, is evident when one considers the impeachment trial of ex-Prez Bill Clinton, whose “high crime and misdemeanor” was getting a blow job in the Oval Office. Bad judgment and unworthy of the office, for sure, but probably not a crime or even a misdemeanor. The Republicans just wanted to embarrass Clinton and they did so, using the impeachment process.)

Because those Senatorial Republican buddies of President Trump didn’t convict him doesn’t mean that a crime wasn’t committed. However, the ex-President’s attorneys are now claiming that his impeachment exoneration is tantamount to a criminal judgment of “innocent” and the recent charges against him are, in a sense, double jeopardy, which is outlawed.

If Trump’s attorneys’ recent creative assertions (immunity and double jepardy) were to be upheld by the Judicial Branch of government, it would allow a President who enjoys majority support in Congress to do just about anything he might want to do without any legal repercussions. He would, in essence, become a King, accountable to no one. He could, for example, do away with elections or kill anyone in the opposition Party or journalists who don’t kowtow to him.

There would be no more democracy in the United States.

That is not what the U.S. Constitution envisions or provides, and it would be breathtaking for the Supreme Court to assert this, particularly since most of the Justices are considered to be “Conservative” (i.e. hewing to the original intent of the Founding Fathers).

On the other hand, the current Supreme Court is facing strong criticism on the ethical front, and shows no signs of cleaning up its act. Each Justice, appointed for life, is accountable to no one, so a majority of Justices can engineer a lot of mischief.

Since they are “immune” from criticism, maybe they will extend this privilege to Presidents and ex-Presidents?

We shall see about this “immunity” idea.

October has been a busy month thus far, and we’re only in the second week!

Many medical appointments are taking up a lots of time, as our doctors are located in St. George, Utah, which is an hour up Interstate 15 from our home. It’s a beautiful drive, up the Virgin River Gorge, but each appointment is a minimum three-hour commitment.

Last week, I had cataract surgery on my right eye in St. George. It went well. Then, I had to return the next day for a post-op check. But, before we saw the eye surgeon, Charlie had an appointment with her OB-GYN doc. About four hours after my visit with the eye doc, Charlie had an appointment with a gastroesophageal surgeon re: her issues with a hiatal hernia and GIRD.

It was one LONG day.

However, it was a GOOD day, as well, because Charlie got some hope about resolving her stomach problems. The surgeon was very thorough and went over the potential surgical options, identified all of the benefits and risks, and answered every question we asked. Going into the consultation, we were probably 80 to 20 percent against surgery, but Dr. Watson’s confidence gave us hope. We’re now probably 80-20 in favor.

This coming week will, again, involve a lot of traveling to-from St. George. Charlie has a pre-surgery exam via nasal-esophageal tube on Monday (at 7 in the morning, requiring us to leave home at 5 a.m.!). Then, on Tuesday, she has an Upper G.I. exam under fluoroscope. Then, on Wednesday, I have cataract surgery on my left eye. Then, on Thursday, I have my post-op follow-up with my eye surgeon .

(BTW, I can now, with only one eye fixed, see well enough to ditch all of my prescription glasses. For years, I have had three pairs: one for reading, one for watching TV, and one pair of prescription sunglasses for outdoor activities. I can hardly wait until they fix my left eye on Wednesday. It’s like being 15 again!)

We’re basically “on the bicycle” four days this coming week. Lots of driving up and down the beautiful Virgin River Gorge, which is very lush right now. At least that part of the ordeal will be pleasant.

I’ve been doing a lot of landscape repair to our property. The Summer was a hot one and quite a number of plants didn’t survive. I’ve replanted at least a dozen specimens in the soil and about a half-dozen in pots. We had a grub problem, evidently, as many of the root balls of failed plants showed evidence of the little root munchers. I’ve purchased a drip irrigation infuser which, when installed, will meter-out fertilizer and insecticide into the water that’s dripped into every plant. This should make the grub problem disappear and the fertilizer will give the plants a better chance to remain healthy year-round.

I have been walking around the neighborhood in the mornings with my good friend Mac. Six months ago, the guy was in great physical condition, hiking, biking, playing music, and generally enjoying life at age 70. Then, he developed chronic vertigo and general dizziness. His doctors have yet to figure out what is causing this. Mac is seriously depressed, while he sees various specialists to determine what might be going on in his head. He’s now seeing some EENT docs in Las Vegas and they are running a bunch of tests on him. Hopefully, they will stumble onto the cause. Let’s hope that it is fixable because, as Mac says, he “can’t live like this”.

A bad part of Mac’s ordeal is that he needs to do his own “bicycling” up and down Interstate 15 to his specialists’ offices, which are 90 minutes away in Las Vegas. With his condition, he can’t drive, so his wife is having to act as chauffeur, making numerous 3-hour round trips while her husband’s head is spinning. If you’ve ever suffered from vertigo, you know what a nightmare Mac is going through.

Our remoteness is a problem when we are ill, for sure. However, it is a very wonderful time of year right now in the desert, with daytime highs in the 80’s. Typically, October and November (and March and April) are splendid, weatherwise; it’s a time when we get a lot of use out of our backyard pergola and barbeque, and the dogs get to enjoy their wading pool.

Hopefully, by the time we get to the holiday season, Charlie and Mac will have received the medical help that they yearn for and we can all go back to carefree living.