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I like my doctor and his staff (all of one person). It is a small office and whenever I call the doctor’s assistant either answers the phone or she responds to my messages in a timely manner. So my complaint here isn’t a general one, it is about the big doctor’s office which increasingly run medical offices in the USA. I understand that sharing resources, like switchboards, is cost effective way for doctors to handle their office overhead overall but I have yet to encounter one that delivers good service.

The most annoying aspect is they all have an automated phone tree. You know press 1 for billing, press 2 for appointments, press 3 for etc. etc. The phone tree is a great idea gone bad. They are usually too long for me. I have drifted off thinking about something completely unrelated to my phone call by the time the message ends and I haven’t heard or have missed the department I needed so I have to repeat the message and hope I can focus long enough to get my department.

Then, while waiting for the operator to answer, there is the annoying reminder that I really should be consulting the website. Why are you calling when you can consult the website and get all of your answers there. You are just waiting for who knows how long when you could be looking at the website or leaving a message. Why are you still holding, you fucking idiot, go to the website. If I could get the answer from the website, I wouldn’t be calling the office. I always consult the website first because, even at grand old age of 68, I know you are supposed to consult the website first. One reminder would be sufficient, the constant reminders are irritating so much so that if I do get lucky and actually am connected to person, I am usually livid when they answer. It isn’t pretty.

I would take the phone tree up on the option to leave a message if the office would in fact, return my phone call. My experience with phone tree messages is rarely, if ever, do I get a return phone call. Which is odd. If I leave a message on an actual person’s recorder, I usually get an answer. If I have waited for a half hour and reached the point where I realize nobody is going to answer my phone call and I leave a message on the office’s general phone line — I almost never get a response. And I do mean never.

Then there is the baffling experience when the phone forces me to leave a message even after I have committed to staying on the line no matter what. The call gets switched to an answering machine that says — please leave a message at the beep. I am usually so stunned when this happen that I can’t leave a coherent message. I was all right with waiting. Why can’t I wait anymore but you have heard the beep, the phone tree has made it’s decision and you force to leave a message I know will never be answered.

Phone trees might make sense to the budget conscious medicine business complex but it is wretched customer service particularly when a great many of the callers are older and less adept in dealing with automation period. It is frustrating and confusing instead.

I do want to share one secret that works most of the time for me. Press the button for billing. Billing almost always answer the phone and they can usually connect you with the person you need.

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I am amazed when I see posts like the one above. People who want to do away with taxes and regulations have this idea that once they are free from taxes and regulation that they will have all this extra money to spend and lead a glorious government free life. Unfortunately the tax free, regulation free past was miserable. It is only with the expansion of government which regulated the market economy and the taxes paid by the public for these changes did this general misery end.

Once you remove taxation and regulation, people will be presented with an array of new bills which have to be paid. Things like nuclear weapons, the army, the navy, the air force, the justice system, police protection, fire protection, road repair, street lights — all these things and so much more will need to be paid for. Then people will have to figure out if their restaurants meet health standards, buildings are being built so that they will stay up during earthquakes, stopping people from dumping toxins into rivers, checking to see if every household is disposing of human waste properly, to name just a few. Who will do it? How will they be paid?

Is Government perfect? Absolutely not. Could it be done better? Of course. Is this a reason to do away with it completely. No. No more than a Market Economy can’t do everything to meet all of our needs, at least, not without the help of government.

Here is the bottom line — the vast majority of people in this country want a market economy. This isn’t going to change in the near future. In order to make this market economy work, we also need a strong government presence to ensure that the rich, people who have power and money, don’t abuse this power and money to take advantage of people who do not have power and money. This also isn’t going to change in the near future.

This means that we have to figure out a way to make these two, sometimes, antagonistic systems work together. Is this perfect? No but then no system is perfect. Ever. This is our common challenge — how to make an imperfect world work for as many people as humanly possible. It will always be imperfect and we will always be working to make it better. But, given the present interlocking structures that is our system, eliminating Government is absurd and unworkable.

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Texas wants to bring back religious training back to the public schools. The idea here is that the majority religion is Christianity and, given this fact, Texas’ children will learn a little bit about it and become model citizens.

I am probably more blase about religious education than the typical non-religious person. It doesn’t bother me in the least because I know after 12 years of Catholic education, religious training only increased my antagonism towards religion. Add forced Sunday church services like my parents did and Texas will probably get the same share of non-religious people as before Texas began religious education. Really if kids are already having problems with math, history, English and science what makes Texas think that educators will be any better with teaching religion?

But that is not that question before us — the question is can Texas government make children learn about Christianity. I would unequivocally say yes if it weren’t for one important factor. The assumption here is that Christians will sit down and agree on what is to be taught.

Given the past 2,000 years of Christians bitter and brutal quarreling about Christian doctrine, this assumption is a lot of wishful thinking (See Savonarola, St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, 1970’s Northern Ireland if you need some refresher on this). The primary reason the founding fathers separated the Church from the State is that European Christians had spent the last thousand years or so killing one another over religion. All of whom claimed, by the way, they were Christians.

The Founding Fathers thought that any preference to any religion would cause trouble with the other religions — especially within the various Christian groups. Better to leave religion to the individual who can practice as they wish without government interference or, and this is important, government giving a preference to any one belief.

The public schools are already a cultural battleground. Texas will only make it worse with the introduction of religion. Part of me, would love to see the various Christian groups attacking one another about the right Christian doctrine to teach. Particularly since they also claim that the Bible is clear cut about doctrine. Not. Only my sympathy for teachers and students who face an already difficult struggle with non-religious education and, of course, the fear of bloody sectarian warfare keeps me from fully supporting religious education in the public schools.

But Texas is going do what Texas is going to do, so we shall see. Have your bandages ready.

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The great thing about being a reader is that you discover that there are a lot of people that think like you. It is a relief to know that there are others who have the same thoughts and you are not alone in the world.

This is also a very bad thing for me as a writer. Writing is something painful for me. It takes me awhile to be satisfied with what I’ve written and I will reread and edit numerous times before I am happy with it. Inevitably when I think I have written something particularly brilliant I immediately read someone who saying exactly the same thing except maybe better and certainly faster.

This discovery is disappointing for me because I think I have this original idea and I have put it all down so the world can see it and then I learn that the world has already seen it and has know about it for some time. Somebody else got to it first.

It has all been said before which has actually been said before too. Damn.

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One of the more telling aspects of both parties trying to gerrymander the electoral maps in states where they are the dominant party is that it sounds like both parties have given up on winning over enough members of the other party for a big win. Both parties prefer to rig the system where they can. Then they will rile their base and pick off enough undecideds to win a slim majority. Not a terribly confident strategy nor very promising strategy in getting things done.

It means that the nation is stuck in deadlock. The only way to make things happen is for people who don’t care about our political process and will ram their agenda through using extra-Constitutional methods — like Trump. Trump isn’t the problem. He is a symptom of a greater problem. The system is no longer working as it should. Changing the system, thanks to our clever forefathers, is nearly impossible without a supra majority.

To end this stalemate and hopefully save democratic institutions (or if you prefer republican ones), the country needs a modicum of co-operation between the two parties in order to make this happen. I just don’t see that happening in the present political circumstances.

It is all very depressing.

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I once was talking about reparations for the families of ex-slaves with a woman who finally had enough of me. Now here is the thing I doubt that reparations will be instituted anytime soon. The American public is too tax averse and the subject is too controversial to get anywhere near congressional passage. Even though it is unlikely to happen, there is a pretty reasonable case to be made for giving reparations.

So the woman I was arguing with finally stumped when she asked, “why should I pay for the sins of my father?” I didn’t have an answer at the time but I do now.

This same woman gets all weepy when speaking about all the good America has done. She visited Normandy Beach to see where D Day was fought. She had justifiable pride in those soldiers sacrifice. She believes she benefited enormously from her American heritage. She owed something to the forefathers for the sacrifices they made.

Well, then, doesn’t she also owe something to the victims of her ancestors mistakes. It is terribly easy to claim American heritage when it is doing good. But let’s face it, it didn’t always do good.

My mother’s family were some of the original settlers of my home state of Kansas. Presumably, they took their land from the indigenous people who roamed the plains prior to their arrival. Now I certainly don’t approve of forcing people from their land. On the other hand I have benefited greatly from their actions even though I committed no crime.

Might makes right. The bottom line is that the native population was, through a combination of trickery and force, removed from their land. My ancestors then took advantage of it. If I am proud of what they built and I also need to acknowledge the damage they did to the native population. History cuts both ways.

Getting back to the reparations debate. There is no clear cut dividing line when racism ended. Indeed it lingers on to this day but let’s use the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a dividing line. Before 1964, then, discrimination was legal. What did my ancestors do to prior to 1964 to ensure that Blacks had civil rights. Precious little, I am afraid.

Now these are ancestors that I actually remember not some distant myth of an ancestor. These are grandparents and parents. I am innocent of any crime but my ancestors sat idly by while something terrible was happening.

Which brings me to Trump trying to sanitize slavery by removing a picture of a whipped slave from the National Park system. Trump is concerned that this type of photo gives a negative view of our history and “distorts understanding rather than enrich(es) it.” This is an actual photograph. There is no argument about that. Trump is afraid that people will learn that actual flesh and blood human beings whipped this mans back until it was a mess of scars.

What? Seriously, what? What misunderstanding is Trump worried about? What is gained by removing this photograph? We don’t have to think of our ancestors doing horrible things in order to keep slaves? The problem with wanting to worship our ancestors is that our ancestors were human beings not saints. Sanitizing history doesn’t change it and it actually makes the Civil War more confusing. Why did so many people die to stop slavery when the slave owners were so nice and the slaves so happy?

And this is why reparations are useful. It would be a price that living Americans would pay for the mistakes of their ancestors. It might make, and might is the operative word here, people realizes that at one point in our history we behaved terribly to our fellow human beings and that is important.

Of course, it will never happen but the least we can do now is fight to show the brutality of slavery. A very small price indeed.

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“Some Like it Hot” is a song I like that I lost track of. For some reason, I stopped listening to it. I have a habit of listening to a song I like until I am sick of it and then stop listening to it again for a very long time. I think this is what happened here because I certainly enjoyed listening to it again when I stumbled across it the other day.

The only thing I have a quibble about is some rather inane and juvenile lyrics which I find easy to forgive for the following reasons:

  1. The drums. There is some pretty intense and powerful drum playing – particularly at the beginning of the song. A solo drum start which gives the song a primal sound that brought me into the song and continues to pound throughout the song.
  2. Robert Palmer. I have to confess I have very few star crushes but Robert Palmer is one of them. His voice has a sexy pitch that it is difficult to define — masculine and playful — not exactly the words I am looking for but as close as I can get right now. He means to seduce you but he is also assuring you that it will be a lot of fun all the same. It’s weird. It could just be an irrational response to a man who gets my pheromones going. Whatever the explanation, I like Robert Palmer.
  3. Brass. I like horns in a band. Except for the tuba, brass instruments are easy to carry. A small band could certainly throw in a trumpet into the trunk of a car as easily as a guitar case so its absence in rock bands is a mystery to me. In this song’s case, the brass adds powerfully to the sexiness of the sound.
  4. It is entertaining which I think all any piece of art has to do. I enjoyed listening to it.

Here is a link if you want to give it a try. Some like it hot, I know I do. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

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This equivalence debate surrounding the Charlie Kirk murder bores the shit out of me. You guys said horrible things after Charlie Kirk was murdered. Well, Charlie Kirk said these horrible thing first and that was worse. And, by the way, your mother wears army boots. It is childish and meaningless. This back and forth of who said horrible things about who is impossibly long and never complete. So trying to pinpoint where this all started is a fool’s errand. No one will be happy with the other side’s starting point.

The takeaway from this back and forth is that you are responsible for what you say. This means you might think twice before opening your mouth to say something nasty about someone you don’t like. But, if, instead, you want to determine who started it, by all means, take all the time you want. I am sure some Biblical scholar could take this back to Cain and Able. That will be so very helpful in resolving the present crisis.

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Unless someone can provide evidence to support some criminal conspiracy was afoot, the only person who deserves blame for the murder of Charlie Kirk is Tyler Robinson who is accused of shooting him. It is important to emphasize accused because, at this point, we, and by we I mean the public, the press and the pundits, know very little to ascertain anything.

This, of course, doesn’t stop anyone from speculating. There is all this finger pointing. The shooter was Trans. The shooter was left wing. The shooter was a Mormon. The shooter came from a MAGA family. The shooter was a white man. All of these may be true but none of these groups bear any responsibility in the shooting.

Charlie Kirk fans want revenge. Against who exactly? Saying you don’t like someone or his politics and wishing them dead is not a crime. It is akin to someone in a fit of anger saying I could kill him. The important thing is they didn’t. It was a feeling that wasn’t put into action. There is nothing wrong with that and I don’t see the point of pursuing a vendetta against anyone who did. Poor taste isn’t a crime and, by all means, feel free to point out the bad taste but that is about all anyone should do about that.

Jimmy Kimmel eluded to some vague connection of the accused being a white man with a wink wink and nudge nudge, like this is supposed to mean something. I am a white man, Jimmy Kimmel is a white man, is he saying that white men are prone to murder? It is as ridiculous of a statement as the Texas congressman who wants to take Trans people off the street because a few of them have been involved in some highly visible crimes. We no more can take Trans people off the street than we can take White men off the street. These are meaningless bits of information that tell us absolutely nothing about what happened.

Here is a time when speculation is particularly dangerous. Charlie Kirk was a controversial figure. Some people are angry that he was murdered and others blame him for his contributions to a poisonous political environment. Pulling these meaningless facts out as if they mean something is pouring more fuel on an already burning fire. Now is a very good time to keep your mouth shut until you know more and then, and only then, punish the man who actually pulled the trigger instead of a group who might share some identification with the shooter.

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First it is important to know that I hate the color orange. It hurts my eyes every time I see it. So the above shirt had one strike against it to begin with. But, upon closer inspection, it just gets worse. Orange, as I have said, is a problem for me but the combination of green, white and orange is ghastly. Then the patterns are inconsistent in a way that makes the shirt look poorly put together. You have orange line running down the left side of the shirt surrounded by squares, except for the one section where the buttons are which looks like a sideways Utah and gives the appearance of being wonky and amateurish. This is a horrible looking shirt that I can only see senior golfers wearing when the nicer shirts are at the bottom of the dirty cloths basket. A definite no from me.