Elephants in the Room

Our federal budget has ballooned with waste, “pork” and corruption over time expanding our nation’s deficit to the point it can no longer be swept under the rug or hidden away. We must cut spending and increase revenue to even begin paying down our debt. We have overcharged our national credit card. It is no longer good enough to pay the minimum amount each month ignoring the balance due and the interest on that balance due. I hope we can all agree on this sobering fact, but the devil is in the details. It is how we cut our spending and what we cut that will be interesting to follow.

I find it interesting that for some the first thing to be cut should be education and social programs for the poor and disadvantaged. Still others say that spending on Space, high speed trains and our nation’s infrastructure should be on the chopping block. Some are calling for the end of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security which would have a tremendous impact on the elderly and the poor. One party seems to think that by heavily targeting only domestic spending (about 14 % of the total budget) that they can fix the total budget crisis. Everyone seems to be ignoring the “elephants in the room.”

Where are they on tax reform that would make our corporations and the wealthiest Americans actually pay their fair share? Many do not pay any taxes at all. In fact, they get tax breaks and incentives for taking American jobs to foreign countries to exploit cheap labor and maximize profits. But even making the tax codes fair will not solve the budget crisis, nor will only cutting domestic spending and social programs and education to the bone.

I think some of the biggest “elephants in the room” include defense spending and a military industrial complex that profits greatly from two wars half way around the world that are going on 10 years and counting. Just a small portion of that massive budget could fund education and most of our vital social programs for the poor and the elderly. Just a portion of that defense budget could create green jobs that could lead us off America’s dependency on foreign oil and improve our environment. It could lead to research and development of new technologies which would lead to more jobs that did not rely on death and destruction for profit and jobs.

As for Social Security, it is costing us nothing! It is still solvent, but it needs to be fixed for future generations. It can be fixed now to insure that it will be there for our grandkids. We are living longer than past generations so increase the age of retirement gradually, if needed, and reduce or eliminate benefits for those wealthy Americans who truly do not need them. Too many elderly Americans depend on Social Security to eliminate it, privatize it or raid the funds for other purposes, as is being proposed by some heartless, short-sighted, political idiots.

And when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid, don’t do away with them…fix them, too. Make them more efficient and fight healthcare fraud within the system. Take steps to make healthcare more affordable and accessible to all Americans. Reform the tort laws and give doctors incentives based on patient outcome and best practices so that our doctors don’t have to do test after expensive test to cover their butts from lawsuits. At the same time, eliminate conflict of interests between doctors and the testing facilities they may be invested in. Regulate the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. For God’s sake, why does our heath care cost twice as much as the rest of the world? Why should Americans have to pay so much more for the same lifesaving medicine that our neighbors in Canada and Mexico can have for a fraction of the cost?

Foreign aid may be a necessary part of diplomacy and who we are as a country, but at what point do we turn off the spigot to those countries that hate our guts and often use our aid money and the weapons they buy from us against us. Too often it goes to enrich their corrupt leaders with poor human rights records at the expense of their impoverished citizens? It is like continuing to dole out money to drunks on the street when we don’t have enough money to fix our own house or put food on our own table for our family. When do we stop giving out money that we don’t have?

Yes, we have “elephants in the room!” Will our nation’s leaders get up the courage to fix what needs fixing? Will they regulate banks, corporations and the insurance industry? Will they reform the tax codes so that wealthy Americans and large corporations pay their fair share? Will they end those two wars that have sapped our nation’s wealth and the lives of too many young Americans so that we can channel portions of the defense budget for education and research and development that will lead to a green economy and finally break our addiction to foreign oil?

Yes, we have “elephants in the room.”

Food for THOUGHT…

On Diabetes



Me at 155 lbs.

 Early last year, I had parted ways with the doctor who diagnosed my diabetes in 2007. I came to him with double vision and an A1C score of 8.9 (a very high average blood sugar reading over a 90 day period). I had not been to see a doctor in years. There was concern that I had suffered a stroke because of my double vision. A cat-scan was scheduled, but at the last minute I chose to cancel it. I decided to see if the other cause was my high blood sugar that went undiagnosed over a long period of time. It was a gamble, but my intuition and the out of pocket cost for the scan made me hold off and wait. If I got my blood sugar down with medication, diet and exercise, my normal vision might return. For months I wore an eye patch, tested myself twice a day and took different medicines until my doctor settled on the new drug, Januvia. I took classes on living with diabetes and began to change my lifestyle. I had to watch what I ate and how much I ate. I began to go for walks and work outside on landscaping around the house and garden. I went from 155 lbs. to 132 lbs. and after many months, my eyesight finally returned to normal. My A1C score was now down to 6.1 (normal).


Through all of this, I was given to understand that once you had diabetes, you had it for life. I would have to have checkups every three months, call in prescriptions for testing supplies, and the high priced, brand name drug that seemed to be working. I would have to track everything I ate and prick my finger at least once a day. My medications and testing supplies would run about $50 a month with my insurance, but if I ever lost my job and or insurance coverage, I could easily pay $200-$300 a month and doctor visits would cost over $100 every visit, not counting blood tests and lab tests. There was a lot to keep me on the straight and narrow, but it just bothered me that for the rest of my life I would be tethered to medicines and doctors. I was now a diabetic with a pre-existing condition.

For years I kept the routine office visits and trips to the Target Pharmacy. I dreaded the long hours I would wait in my doctor’s office for the 15 minute face to face with him and refills on my prescriptions. The waits grew longer and longer with no explanations. Several times my appointment was cancelled without notice. I got fed up and decided to see what would happen if I slowly got off my medicine and focused on my diet and exercise. I had this vision of beating my diabetes. I had this vision of taking control and letting my body heal itself.

After months of taking my Januvia every other day and adding cinnamon to my daily regimen of vitamins and supplements, I found that my daily blood sugar test results had not gotten worse. In fact, it seemed to actually be the opposite. My test results were getting better. I was almost out of my Januvia and decided to find another doctor. My new doctor did a blood work up and some other tests last November. My A1C score was 6.4 after I had cut back on the Januvia prescribed by my original doctor. At that time we discussed going off my medication for 3 months to see how it affected my A1C score. I would continue to log what I ate and test every day. My new doctor was willing to work with me, based on a graph of my testing results that I did for him. If my A1C score did not go over 7.0 by my next appointment, he might consider keeping me off the medication and continue to monitor me going forward. If I did need to go back on medication, he could prescribe one of the $4.00 diabetes drugs now available at Target, Wal-Mart and HEB pharmacies. My insurance co pay, for such drugs has now risen from $20 to $40 for a month’s supply so that was a real cost savings.

I went back today for my follow-up appointment. After three months of being off my medicine for diabetes, my A1C score rose only slightly to 6.7. My doctor not only has agreed to let me stay off medication, but said I no longer need to test every day. I need to monitor my blood pressure occasionally to make sure it stays in the normal range, but for now I can stay drug free. My vision is coming true and I plan to have an A1C score of 6.4 or better by my next visit. Diet and exercise will now be my weapons of choice.

I’m learning that we can put our intentions out there… and the Universe responds. Keep you posted!

Food for THOUGHT…

Dancing with the Wind

I finished a book, Soul Stories, by the New Age writer, Gary Zukav. In it, he presents the idea that our goals in life should be:


1) Harmony
2) Cooperation
3) Sharing
4) Reverence for life

It made me think how often my goals in life have nothing to do with any of the above. They all seem so simple and lovely ideas that I should have learned in Sunday school when I was growing up. Yet, our human nature seems compelled to want just the opposite for some reason.

If I were a visitor from another planet, I would guess that Humans were all about Chaos. Watching the news, I would observe that Humans are constantly running around the world competing over resources, rioting when they want something and killing when they feel they must to come out on top. I would conclude that Humans, in general, were anything but a harmonious group of creatures, always fighting, always struggling for something.

I might observe that when one group of Humans builds something of which they are proud, another group comes in and knocks it down, votes it out, blows it up or burns it down. The idea of cooperation is foreign to these strange creatures. They would rather build up and tear down something a hundred times rather than come together and build a sturdy something once that all could use and be proud of. Humans seem to feel that if they cooperate, they would have to compromise what they want for themselves for the greater good of others. THAT would be unacceptable!

When it comes to sharing with these Humans, look out! Too often, you will literally be in a fight for your life. They have this idea that whoever can obtain the most marbles, money, food, water (you name it), has the power to control the rest of the Humans. If there are only so many carrots on an island, but there are enough to feed everyone on the island, you can bet that one or more of the Humans will find a way to corner the market on carrots and make the other Humans pay for their carrots. Some Humans will, of course, starve with no carrots at all, but that’s okay in their way of thinking. I have mine. Now you go find yours. Now, just think what these Humans would do if the resources were limited, if there was not enough to go around.

By far, the most curious thing about these Humans is their lack of concern for life (plant, animal or vegetable). By their way of thinking, some Humans are far more valuable than others. Their value is determined by their wealth, strength, knowledge and social status, among others. Humans of far lesser value on their value scale can be sacrificed for the greater good of the more valued. It would also seem to apply for this planet’s plants and animals as well. Far better that a forest be cut down and rare animals face extinction than some Human project fail to enrich those valuable Humans at the top with their power and wealth. All life is NOT created equal is what I would observe about these Humans. In general, they show no reverence for life, except perhaps their own.

Thank God I don’t believe everything I see on the Nightly News.

Food for THOUGHT…