coffee.mill

Christmas 2011

            Christmas 1914 found much of the world at war. 

            Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungry and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia by a Serbian Nationalist in protest to Austria-Hungry having control of the region.  Serbia wanted to take control of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  The assassination was an attempt at what we now call “regime change.”  The “collateral damage” would run to about 15 million killed and 20 million wounded.

            Because of various alliances and treaties in effect at the time, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Russia got involved to defend Serbia. Germany seeing Russia mobilizing, declared war on Russia. France was then drawn in against Germany and Austria-Hungary. Germany attacked France through Belgium pulling Britain into war. Then Japan entered the war. Later, Italy and the United States would enter on the side of the allies. (About.com American History)

            It was a pretty good war by all accounts.  Millions killed.  Irreplaceable historic treasures blown to bits.  New and amazing uses of modern technology to slaughter more and more people faster and faster.  Tanks.  Machine guns.  Gas. 

            So it’s fair to say these folks were serious about the business of war.

            And yet on Christmas day 1914 some German soldiers, and some British soldiers and some French soldiers took time out to celebrate Christmas.  You can look it up; the famous Christmas Truce of 1914.  Buried some of the mangled remains in No Man’s Land; exchange presents of cigarettes and candy.  Laughed even, perhaps, laughed with relief and resignation and powerlessness and fatigue.  The powers that be, the high command were of course horrified that such a thing would occur, and instituted measures to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.  But there was this time out, a reflection from the side of humanity from which we derive the work ‘humane.’  There is that side.  Most people in power do not want to highlight that aspect of who we are, because it defeats political agendas and thwarts the thirst for power at all cost. 

            Christmas is ostensibly a day to celebrate Christ’s birth, and he was by all accounts a peaceable guy.  He lost his temper only one time, at business men making as dam good profit changing money.  He had his limits, it would seem.  His birthday has traditionally been a time for family, and perhaps for a little reflection on the larger themes of life.  I would like to think He would have smiled a little, perhaps a sad smile, seeing those muddied, bloodied warriors shaking hands in No-Man’s-Land.

            And I admire and appreciate those who work on this day to provide necessary services.  As I write this, a fire truck screamed by, lights ablaze, sirens wailing.  I appreciate those working on Christmas day, serving in fire departments, in the military, in hospitals, in police forces and traffic control.  There are jobs that require that kind of commitment.

             But McDonald’s?  Starbucks?  Open for business. 

            The sign on McDonald’s proclaimed the birth of indigestion “Open Christmas Day…Celebrate Season’s Cravings.”  Celebrate season’s cravings?  From Webster… “craving…and intense, urgent or abnormal desire or longing.”  I would so like to think of McDonalds being open on Christmas day as abnormal, and in a sense it was.  Most of Jupiter Florida was quiet today.  Most stores were closed.  Local businesses, family owned.  Some larger chains.

            But the corporate giants, they are open to feed the intense, urgent, and abnormal desire or longing for mediocre food and five dollar cups of coffee.  Ka-ching!  No break for the rank-and-file laboring in those trenches.  No Christmas Truce.

Book published; epiphany

                We finally got Tracy’s book published on Kindle last night…it has been much on my mind and has consumed most of the time I have allotted to writing.  I’m very excited for her, and for having learned more about the process.  Tracy is an engaging writer, and from the feedback we’ve received so far, it’s one of those books that’s hard to put down once you start.  Not a long read, but for anyone with a heart, probably half a box of Kleenex.  It costs $2.99 on Kindle…or Amazon…my own confusion here, but my assumption is that Kindle is owned by Amazon.  And I also think you can download the book to most any computer, besides the iPads, Kindle readers, iPhones and all the other assorted devices filling our lives with faint blue light, connecting us with those distant from us, while at the same time isolating us from those around us.  Interesting.

                You can go directly to the book at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006NM2976.  We would appreciate any feedback you might have, and of course, would love to see some good reviews on the Kindle site.  If you don’t happen to like the book, that too is fair, but I hope you might choose to be kind.  In that vein, I did neglect to mention to Tracy one of the pitfalls of putting thoughts down into words.  Because much of what you write will not be understood to mean what you thought it meant when you wrote it.  It is not an easy thing, shaping into angular words the rounded edges of thoughts.  And in a personal memoir, both those mentioned and those left out will have an opinion on what was said and why.  And not everyone will be happy about it.  At best, any memoir is one perspective of events that affect many, many people.  So putting down into words what you personally think, feel, see, and experience is a daring and outrageous feat.  I admire Tracy for her effort and her courage.

                And I’m back on the merry-go-round here in Florida.

                I didn’t even know I was on it before I left for Peace Corps, didn’t miss it while I slowly wound down in Belize, and barely understood when I hit the spinning platform landing in Fort Lauderdale.  But I’m beginning to see it now, the flashing colors, people spinning by me on all sides at the speed of life.  It’s not a good thing, nor a bad thing.  It just is.  In Belize, the pace was slower, my surroundings and contacts constricted, my access to the outside world limited by my own choice.  Here, there is little private space or time.  There is little to no value placed on quiet contemplation.  Plenty of jokes of course, mad monks, contemplative whackos, a nod to religion for an hour or so on Sundays.  But that too is most often filled with exhortation, bombast or pounding, pulsing rhythms and rhymes.  (as an aside, I always seem to have to look up both rhythm and rhyme…English is at best, encrypted).

                Tracy and I had a beer and sandwich at a little sports bar near our home…the area we sat in, bounded by the entrance, windows facing the street, the bar and a back hallway was 30’ by 30’, give or take.  I counted 27 TVs in just that part of the bar.  Twenty seven.  They were side by side along the walls, and hung in rows from the ceiling.  In my old hometown of Benque Viejo in Belize, there was a TV in one of the restaurants.  I did stop by there to see the US soccer team play Japan.  Hard-fought game filled with drama, heart and courage.

                So I begin to understand my inability to write these past few weeks.  I’m on sensory overload rather than empty of words.  The ideas spin in and out so fast I can barely catch the whisper of the thought.  Facebook going corporate and what that means for privacy concerns for millions of people; the sad comedy of the pre-pre-presidential race in the US; the even sadder tragedy of Congress; the end of US troop involvement in Iraq; floods, blizzards, tornadoes.  Tebow.

                In Benque, I had a distinct identity, and task, an assignment.  I was the gringo, the Peace Corps volunteer, and I could be a window to another culture for those who chose to read my blogs.  Even then I wasn’t consistent as I wanted to be, getting a blog out once per week.  But here, whoa.  I’m just one more northerner cluttering up the Florida landscape, without even the good sense to move down here with a lot of money to inject into the local economy.  Looking for some part-time carpenter work, taking time to follow the words where they will.  Thanks to Tracy and her work ethic, I have that opportunity, and it is a rare opportunity indeed.  I hope to be up to the task.

                Check out Tracy’s book.  I think you’ll find it worth the time.

health care and couches

                Tracy would like to find a love-seat for our living room to better accommodate guests to our home, and that got me thinking about health care.  I finally understood that health care is not a love-seat, and it should not be a love-seat.

                But that’s what it is now.

                We have high end and low end health care, cheap freebies, discounts, blue-light specials.  We have pitch-men and hawkers on TV selling drugs for the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals advertising their services and staff like they were ball clubs with the best recruits from this year’s draft picks.  We have doctors seeing patients on eight minute rotations.  Seeing patients.

                Maybe that’s the telling remark.  Seeing patients.  They aren’t seeing people anymore.

                And I think that’s a shame.

                I think if doctors were still seeing people, there would not be a health care debate.  Health care has become big business, and health care should not be about business, it should be about people.  We’re not couches.  Big business not only doesn’t care about that, it doesn’t even come up on the radar.  People are units on a balance sheet, bottom lines on a business report, lumped together with other expenses to be cut, trimmed, handled.  People also consume drugs, which brings in profit, they use services which brings in profit, they fill beds, which brings in profit, so people do have a function in the health care industry as long as they are cut, trimmed and handled profitably.

                Health care is not about health care anymore.  It’s about selling couches.

                People are fed up with it.  I’m fed up with it. 

                Here’s the kicker.   Doctors and nurses, formerly the primary part of health care, are pretty much relegated to the sidelines in what used to be their game.  Oh, they perform a function, but only on someone else’s terms, following rules they never imagined.   I really believe that most doctors and nurses do care about their patients, see them as people.  The industry has churned out lots of money hungry doctors for sure, but I still believe most are not that way.  I have no respect for those in it for the money; but that's a reflection of our society in general now, not about that profession in particular.

                I think doctors, who at heart got into the profession to help people, let health care get away from them.  They were busy doing what they did best, and that is the practice of medicine, and they didn’t really much care for the business of health care.  They let someone else take care of that.  Doctors in general made pretty good money, so they had fairly deep pockets, and there were those who saw an opportunity to get their own hands into those deep pockets.  The disconnect came because the doctors did know we are not couches, but the opportunists who followed saw no distinction.  As a matter of fact, they saw an extremely vulnerable class of consumer to exploit. 

                And they did.

                Because I’m not trying to find a second hand love-seat to fit between the two front living room windows that coordinates well with the couch we have.  No, I’m trying to figure out what it means that I’ve had blood in my stool for five days running.  Preparation H isn’t taking care of it.  I’m a little bit concerned, but trying not to show it. 

                I can’t call a doctor, because my insurance card says I have to be pre-approved before I can go to a doctor.  So I have to talk to a sweet, young telephone receptionist in some other part of the country about my bloody stools first.  And she determines whether or not I can talk to someone else at the insurance company about the same thing to determine if I can see a doctor about it.  And that doctor won't be the doctor I need to see, because he or she is a GP; he/she will need to refer me to a specialist.  And there will be a battery of tests, some of which I will actually need, some of which will be billed out to satisfy the health care industry.  And at some point, someone who gets it, who understands medicine and people will say something like, “if only you had come in a week or two earlier, we could have done something to help.”   But the health care industry will have transferred a lot of money from me, or my insurance company to others in the health care industry, a couch will have been sold.  And if I live, my rates on my insurance will go up, or my insurance will be cancelled and I will have a pre-existing condition that no insurance company will cover.

                If I don’t have insurance, I just keep buying Preparation H and hope for the best. 

                And there are some people out there who wonder why there are those of us who want someone, anyone, even the government to stop the craziness.

                I read of a doctor while I was in Belize who doesn’t take insurance payments, doesn’t take government payments…she works on a cash basis only.  And she said she likes it just fine.  A lot less paperwork.  More time with her patients.  She pays no malpractice insurance and has a sign up stating so, and indicating that if patients agree to her services, they also agree to not sue. 

                Seems to be working for her, and for her patients.

                When I find a doctor with a similar philosophy here in Jupiter, or near here, I will stand in line to see that doctor.