Well, Duh!

I had to laugh when I read the headline for a story in The Wall Street Journal yesterday: Corruption Suspected in Airlift Of Billions in Cash From Kabul. We are well aware that we are supporting a very corrupt government headed by Hamid Karzai. We are well aware that his brother is one of the biggest offenders with his connections to the opium trade.

So why is it that suddenly officials are surprised that the millions of U.S. dollars packed in suitcases and stacked on pallets at the airport for transfer elsewhere might just be tied to corruption? Especially when much of it is slated for banks in Dubai?

What really frosts me and seems to be forgotten by the powers that be, this is U.S. taxpayer money. Yours and mine! You know, the money sent to create the jobs we don't have here, to build the infrastructure there while ours is falling apart, schools, hospitals.

It goes into Afghanistan as aid. It goes out as bribes. It's all perfectly legal with no accountability. They are shocked, shocked that it might be due to corrupt activity!

There is a new general in charge now to fight this useless war. We're told the ambassador, the special emissary and the State Department will no longer butt heads with the military and that the soldiers may again be permitted to defend themselves. That's all fine and dandy but it will be meaningless if in the end Karzai and his ilk will follow the money, our money, to their secret accounts in Dubai and elsewhere and ultimately leave the country to the Taliban.

Should that happen our entire government should be charged with aiding and abetting the enemy. After all it is our money making it all possible!

Animals At Risk In Their Own Home!

I hate to say I told you so, but I did. Often. Before legislation passed allowing people to carry guns in our National Parks. My fear was the animals, and at some point other humans, will be at risk of being shot.

I was right. Friday a grizzly was shot and killed by hikers in Denali National Park. By a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol.

According to the law you are allowed to carry them but not discharge them. What kind of law is that? Anyone feeling threatened, justified or not is likely to pull the gun and use it as easily as the police taser old ladies confined to bed!

That has happened too. In Glacier a woman discharged a .357 magnum into the ground to frighten off what she deemed an aggressive white tail deer. Being attracted to salt including that in human sweat, the deer probably only wanted a taste! She was given a warning because she wasn't facing imminent danger.

It's nearly July. Vacation season is in full swing. The National Parks, which I believe are a haven for wild life, will be full of enthusiastic people wanting to experience the adventure. Great scenery. Exhilarating fresh air. Wild life in their natural setting.

Somehow guns on the hips of these people is offensive to me. It encourages carelessness. They don't have to bother knowing why a deer might be aggressive or that there may be better ways to avoid a confrontation with a bear when you've but heard a rustle in the bushes!

The estimated population of bears in that part of the park is between 300 and 350. Now there is one less. The incident is being investigated. I just hope it wasn't a female trying to protect her cubs.

What a bad piece of legislation. I absolutely dread the body count. Deer, bears. Rabbits may be next. They rustle the bushes too.

Ahhhh Choo!

For those of you who don't live in Cottonwood country, this is what aggravates our allergies. This was taken a couple of days ago. Today we couldn't even see the grass. It looks just like someone trashed the yard with cotton balls.

Fortunately I'm not bothered by it. It's not like I don't have enough to contend with considering my back side and all! For those of us not bothered it's fun, but for those who are it's miserable. So here's to winds in the willows and everywhere else to blow it away!

What Do We Have To Do?

The public is furious about health care. Even more so when they saw the size of the bill and found many in Congress admitted they hadn't read it. Remember Nancy Pelosi telling us as soon as it was passed we'd find out what was in it?

How many months have passed? The public still doesn't like it even as the President is assuming the power to change things.

So now it's financial reform. Another two thousand page monstrosity. What's in this one? You guessed it. No one knows. They really don't get it. Yet Christopher Dodd who headed the effort had this to say according to the Washington Post.

"It's a great moment. I'm proud to have been here," said a teary-eyed Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee led the effort in the Senate. "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we've done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done."

I'm getting tired of the way these yahoos conduct business. How much pork are we going to find in this bill? How many 'Louisiana Purchases' or bribes like Ben Nelson from Nebraska negotiated? Be sure they're in there.

You know what we get with sloppy legislation? We get six year old girls on the no fly list and can't find out why or how to get off. We get police tasering an 86 year old bed ridden woman.

What's to be done when we're told it's the way Congress works. Period. Live with it. I guess I will but it would be nice to know what it is before rather than after the fact!

When Sciatica Isn't Sciatica

For five years and counting I've been going to doctors trying to find out what has been causing nearly debilitating pain through my buttocks and down my leg. As years passed the pain increased and crept steadily down my leg to the point where my knee doesn't work without a wince of pain and pause to let it pass.

Five years. I think I've taken every muscle relaxant, anti-inflammatory and pain killer known to man. All to no avail. Everyone was convinced it was a back problem and I was convinced it wasn't since the pain emanated from my hip. Finally, my pain doctor, who is an anesthesiologist by training, and my acupuncturist told me it was indeed not a back problem. It was a muscle and nerve problem. Something called Piriformis Syndrome. A malady where the piriformis muscle is pinching the sciatic nerve. I apparently am a text book case.

Five years. My family practitioner at the outset told me nothing showed on the x-ray so there was really nothing to treat. A specialist had looked at an MRI and found some torn muscles in the region but nothing on which to perform to do surgery so take a pill and call in a month. Chiropractors, massage therapists. physical therapy - no one focused on the area I insisted was where the pain began.

Five years. An anesthesiologist and an acupuncturist. Even with the pain specialist I've gone through a pot full of pills and shots to no avail. It took awhile to pin point the problem though I think I explained it as well as the journal he showed me. One more shot is on tap. Botox. Hub is having a fine time with that one. Botox in my butt! It is funny. The pain isn't. The theory is that Botox will relax the muscle big time and release the pinch in the nerve. One hopes! Meantime physical therapy, especially stretches of that muscle, continues on and on and on.

Five years of having my life like nickel and dimed away by a lack of diagnosis and ineffective treatment. Funny, there is so much about the ailment on the Internet you'd think the doctors would have thought of it! Talk about having to be master of yourself and tenacious! If you don't want to settle for "there's nothing there" you've got to push and push and push.

One more shot. I hope it's not in the dark.