Rambling on

The volunteer EMT business is a difficult and sometimes frustrating employment of my time. This morning we were called out at 3:30 am to cover for Edwards, a town that seems to have a problem lately gathering a rescue crew. All three of our available EMTs showed up for duty, numb from lack of sleep. The call was for "chest pain, COPD". As it turned out, the woman was more drunk than in distress and more obnoxious than ill. Our ride to CPH was filled with "I need this" and "I need that". Apparently the woman was enamored with me for my diagnostic skills (haha) and insisted on giving me a hug before I left. Well, the woman lived in a pig sty (to be generous) and was individually filthy, which led me to 'bathe' in Germ-X before we left the hospital.

We were barely home when Hermon was toned out for an elderly man, possible stroke. Hermon is another agency that seldom bothers to answer its pages and we barely had time to refuel and grab another portable oxygen tank before we were paged out again, this time to Hermon. This time we encountered an honestly sick man. I was pretty sure, though, that he had not suffered a stroke, but he had injured himself in a fall. Vitals were good and he was alert and oriented. The Cincinnati Stroke Scale was applied and it was negative. No drooping or slurring of words. His neural response was strong. So we took a watch and see attitude to the hospital, this time in Ogdensburg. It was nearly 9:30 by the time I walked back into the house, six hours later.

A friend of my wife's emailed her yesterday evening with the earth shattering republican revelation that he did not think Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. But here is my take on that. Initially, I believe that Europe is so fucking relieved to be rid of the arrogance that George W. Bush portrayed, that the open and widely conciliatory tone of Obama was welcome, even embraced by people who want to be our friends. His outreach to the Muslim world, his trip to western Europe and his overtures to Russia certainly are positive, if not inspiring, events. Cancelling the ill conceived missile defense system next door to Russia was also an enabler for the relaxing of tensions in the area. Not to mention that technologically the system proposed by Bush was years away from being functional, and, in fact, at the current moment, does NOT work at all. Certainly Obama did not expect this award, but unless you give it to Drs. Without Borders, who else can we deem worthy? Perhaps there have been more deserving people of this award, but for this year Obama has relaxed tensions and offered the collective American hand in friendship in stead of the last eight years of belligerence.

Finally, I am rather tired of the whole health care forum. The butt heads who still resent government "taking over" health care would rather leave it in the hands of investors whose only motive is to make money. Most Republicans have been recipients of the 1.5 million dollars that private health care spreads around Washington daily. Calling Obama's plan socialism is not only disingenuous, but pathetic. Republicans fought Social Security for years and even Bush tried to farm it out. Medicare took 20 years to become reality due to Republican opposition. These are intrinsically necessary programs that could be easily funded once we STOP fighting wars that are both of indefinite length and unbearable cost with minimal results.

Which brings me to my unhappiness with Obama. The decision to fund the Afghan war and even to enlarge our presence there is not just short sighted but a singular waste of young men and our very substance as a country. Our presence there only propagates more enemies. We can not kill them fast enough. It is suicidal and we are playing the part of the Roman fool. If the Chinese can run an army on 84 billion dollars a year, why do we have to spend 620 billion? Cut it in half and spend the rest on health care and the poor. In a country like the USA where the top one percent of the population possesses more wealth than the combined wealth of the lowest 95 % of the country, that is criminal. Find me a tea bagger who has information from any other source except Fox Noise, and I'll show you a liar.

Hope I have the rest of the day off, I'm tired. ljy 10/12/09