This isn't health care, this is apatheic and lethargic disease prevention

A woman in Denver calls 9-1-1, dispatch emergency, requesting an ambulance.

"Severity of the emergency ma'am?"

"It's my ankle, it hurts."

"How did you hurt it?"

"Oh, I didn't do anything to it, you see I have diabetes and high cholesterol, I'm overweight, crushed my ankle because it buckled when I tried to stand and I just can't wait three more days to see my doctor, be a dear and send me some help."

Another forlorn story of apathy and lethargy in American society, the result of a people submerged in a sea of fear and loathing for far too long.  The rational mind of an average American can no longer recognize a legitimate medical emergency compared to a self-perpetuated inconvenience.  It's an emergency when that ankle was broken and needs to be mended and reset, it's an inconvenience when your weight becomes too gravitationally rebellious for your bones to handle.

As our lost society continues to weed through our ever-growing concrete jungle, our perception and understanding of our most basic emergency service, 9-1-1, has become soiled.  Now more than ever, an ill-informed populace request ambulances for non-emergency care, police assistant in getting a child to turn off the XBox 360, a husband to eat his supper, and a Mc Donald's employee for not serving a food item the location was currently bingo on.

"I'm sorry ma'am, we have none of what you ordered, may I get you something else?"

"Nah, I'mma get me the pou-lease ta' get me mah Mc' Rib."

My mom's done a lot in her life, most of that though has consisted of work.  Since 1973, she's held the same job at the same place decade in and decade out.  She's a registered nurse at Memorial Care in Long Beach CA, intensive care.  You know who gets themselves into intensive care?  Allow me to explain...

Things that will commonly get one into intensive care include the following; invasive surgery, cancer, severe illnesses that require a bed and round-the-clock care,  stroke victims, deceptive junkies, and a plethora of ailments littering Web MD's 'least wanted' list.  Things that without a doubt require hospital care.

Some things people today have gotten themselves into intensive care for; heart attack caused by obesity, chronic pains leading from obesity, non-emergency conditions (like Debra Neaves from the denverpost article) of patients who can't wait to see their doctor, and people that just don't have a doctor.  People that know no better than to pick up the phone and dial 9-1-1 when confronted with any medical issue.

Walk into an ER complaining of a medical condition and you will be seen by a doctor.
Have a medical condition that doesn't require the services of an emergency responder and you just wasted time for someone who does and the strained resources of a facility on the brink of professional and moral bankruptcy.
Take them in, get them out, but make sure they leave with a prescription!  No need to educate them on how to stay out of the ER, just push em' through...who cares if they come back just another current in our endless sea of patients.

For this is the failure of multiple aspects of our culture.  Education, general social welfare, and de-humanism. 

Education taking a back beat leads minds away from knowledge as they drift towards euphoric-driven cravings for entertainment, with glazed catatonic eyes.  Does one learn anything about how to care for their health by watching Grey's Anatomy?  Probably not.  Do many Americans know that show was pseudo-ironically named after the premier medical journal penned in the English language?  Probably not.

But this is information I have been privileged to receive, by birth, not by favoring circumstances.  Because I was luck enough to inherit a parent who instead of crusading against the inevitability of disease, has simply cared for the health of humans.

This is where we have turned about-face in our pursuit for life.  Caring for one's health is not a periodical assessment of blood tests, forced coughs, and stethoscopes.  It is an ever-present consideration for what one puts into their body, and how one carries themselves through the decades comprising their life.  Maintaining a diet that spans the multitudes of foods we consume to ensure our bodies receive as many nutrients by volume and variety as possible, consistent exercise to keep the body and it's tissues strong and fresh, and constant consideration of one's health status (feelings of weakness, dizziness, shortness of breath, identifying pains).

Essentially it is on us to know our anatomy and physiology so we can engage in discussion with our doctors when we do need to visit them to best diagnose whatever is happening to our bodies.

A few mornings ago I awoke to a slowly building pressure in my ear, which over the next hour, developed into an intermittent pain.  The last time I'd had an ear infection, I was still shitting in diapers, but I never forgot what an ear infection was.  After dropping 2 Tylenol to ease the pain, I called the doctor and set an appointment for later that afternoon.  Upon arriving into room 12, the doctor asked me what was up and I explained to him what happened...

I'd taken a shower the previous night, water may have remained in my ear allowing for bacteria to grow.  The pressure built slowly over an hour, the drum may have ruptured leading to the pain I experienced.  I had used Q-tips to clean out any wax that might have blocked the passage of air, but I didn't go deep enough to pop my ear drum.  After I took the Tylenol the pain subsided but my ear still wasn't pressurizing correctly.

After he took a look, noticing some wax and blood obscuring his view of my inner ear; he came to two conclusions.  The drum popped but will heal, or I do have an ear infection as I suspected.  I left the office with 10 days worth of antibiotics for the infection with directions to return after the medicine ran out if the problem continued.

Now, five days later, my ear is fine.  Though I'll be finishing the antibiotics regime over the next five days; the infection is gone.  If the drum had indeed popped I'd still surly be suffering from that fallout.  Self-diagnosed and solved within a calendar week, not bad for someone who's medical instruction began and ended in high school during Anatomy and Physiology.

But this is also critical to understanding how we go about fostering social welfare in America.  The view of my inner ear was obstructed, but he could have taken time to clean out the wax and blood to really see what the problem was.  Though it seems that infection is the most plausible of causes, it many have been a combination of pressure pushing against my ear drum, causing the intermittent pain, and bacteria beginning to grow in water that remained and seeped deeper into my ear as the night progressed after my shower.  We'll never know, because the doctor didn't scrutinize the situation deeply.

Am I better?  Yes.  Does this show that the medical system in America has success?  Yes.

Does this constitute a factual anecdote that we are caring for health rather than preventing the inevitability for health to turn sour?  No.

If indeed our medical practitioners conducted "health care", your visit to the doctor would consist of much more than; "how are you feeling", "a person of your age only needs to worry about the following", and "take those and call me if they don't work."  These are the faulty lines in a vaudevillian medical profession we call American.  A minstrel show of cost-effective diagnosis and prescription paradise.  If the pill can't fix it, neither can my laxed skills as a medical-savant. 

Cross-eyed as it may seem, our outlook for social welfare lacks insight.  True to Henry Ford, American life continues to institute the principles of assembly-line mechanics.  Getting them in and get them out...doctor's got a full load today, time to bust the quota...next!

But what of humanity and our value for human life?  Darwanistic or not, God doesn't need to exist for there to be a deeper meaning to life.  If not for spirit, our tangibly finite mortality gives life all the meaning it will ever need to inspire a cultivating feeling for prosperity and growth.  We have but minimal moments in our life, sure it may seem a long stretch, but for those of you looking at a glass now half-full instead of half-empty, where have your years gone?

Care is an unconditional regard for compassion.  Medical care ought be an unconditional regard for health, rather than a relentless crusade against disease.  To educate our populace on anatomy and physiology will empower them to care for their own health and to pass along that knowledge to those that will come.  To regard social welfare by re-humanistic means will bring about a culture that seeks to foster life for the sake of life, not fight disease for the sake of time.

Yet as long as we Americans, allow our medical industry to remain an "industry", free market economics will be top-down the medical policy for American health care.  A health care system hell-bent towards profit from selling your health as a commodity.

Christmas firecracker leads to al Qaeda scare

A Nigerian man, identified as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, attempted to detonate an explosive mixture of powder and chemicals on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 upon approach to land in Detroit.  The device failed as passengers rushed the man.  Abdulmutallab sustained second degree burns, consistent with firecrackers of a similar chemical composition.  Something I myself have witnessed before, just not on a plane and without the intent of killing innocent people.

Back in my sophomore year of high school, I had chemistry with Mr. Jones.  Aside from his goofy antics and mastery of the field, Mr. Jones also had brilliant teaching methods.  To teach us about the law of expansion of gases, he showed how to make dry ice bombs (non-lethal...just very loud).  When the dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) reacted with the water inside the bottle, the dry ice experienced a rapid change of matter-state (from solid to gas) leading to a build up of pressure so robust, the bottle burst in an eruption of sound and water.  Very cool stuff to a 15-year-old.

When it came time to teach us about chemicals and how they are mixed, Jones displayed a layered combination of chemical powders (he wouldn't tell us what) and ignited the mixture with a liquid chemical ( essentially a firecracker).  The beaker containing the mixture blossomed with a brilliant display of colors with the visual aesthetic of a Fourth of July sparkler on crack and acid, tweeker flipping.

This appears to be the same combination by explanation through the press, of Abdulmutallab's concoction; the difference though is not by design but intention.  Jones sought to teach, Abdulmutallab sought to kill.  Problem being, firecrackers don't explode with deadly force.

As facts about this horrifying incident begin to fill the world wide web, few things have been declared that the FBI is verifying:

• Abdulmutallab is an engineering student from the University College of London, according to federal documents (many members of the Mujahideen financed by the CIA during the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in the 80s were also engineering students, many Mujahid joined Osama bin Laden in the creation of al Qaeda)
• Abdulmutallab's name is in a law enforcement database, stated ABC News.
• Abdulmutallab is on a suspected terrorist watchlist, stated Rep. Peter King (R-NY) member of the Committee on Homeland Security.
  
• Abdulmutallab allegedly has affiliations with al Qaeda and received the device along with instructions while in Yemen.
  

As the events of September 11, 2001, appear to be an act of deadly desperation on a grand scale, as the hijackers for some reason required $100,000 wired to them by ISI (Pakistan's CIA) in the months proceeding 911;  we can see now that years later, just shy of a decade, al Qaeda is strapped for cash and short on resources (assets, intelligence, and innovation).

I don't know how to make a bomb, but I could find out.  Sad to say as it is these devices have been around for far long, and discovering the proper combination of chemicals to cause an explosion sizable enough to level an air plane is not difficult.  But I know for fact, that a firecracker couldn't even blow up some of my model airplanes gracing my attic, let alone a jet liner.  Bad students do bad work, lucky al Qaeda inspired and hired a class clown.

For the events of today on Northwest Flight 253 clue us into the fact that, we've gotten to them and they are hurting.

We have seen attempts like this before.

Just eight years ago, Richard Reid, an al Qaeda operative, attempted to detonate an explosive device in his shoe.  That failed, he's in jail.  Suffice to say, a fate Abdulmutallab shall suffer shortly.

But this is old technique played out on an American people that have become by default of survival, feverishly paranoid towards the inevitability of another terrorist attack via plane.

Why?  Success on our behalf.

The war in Afghanistan has waged now for eight years, since then we've heard a stream of upper al Qaeda operatives and commanders falling to the prey of American muscle and missile.

Essentially, they have become lame in their attempts, and scattered to a degree of unsophistication that was once their edge against the Western World.  The guerrillas have run out of bananas, leaving few peels for U.S. to slip up on.

Which is how we wrap around to today.  This attempt is an act of desperation to keep control of psyche.  As long as we fear of an inevitable attack because of ones in proximal history, the tactics of al Qaeda are successful.  As soon as we shed this fear, their house of cards collapses before their eyes.

Yesterday, reports from the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, Iran disclosed that one of Osama bin Laden's daughters just showed up.  Officials at the embassy had no clue she was in the country, nor how she entered.

After running around Afghanistan and flying around the northern provinces of Pakistan for eight years, bin Laden has eluded U.S. captivity like a fox...or perhaps not.  Out foxed us in the sense that we've been searching in all the old holes while he's moved on, true.  Yet cracks from his steps are beginning to show.

His age is turning against him, his dream of Islamic supremacy is fading with his eye sight, and the ranks of his "base" are thinning; these are the acts and ploys of a desperate man on edge, shall he fall soon?  We shall see...