I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America...

I am feeling the need to wax patriotic again. I just read an article about Charlie Price, a US Veteran of Iraq and Kosovo being told by his condo management company that he may not fly his American Flag in his window after Memorial Day. In fact they had told him previously to take it down, but after he protested, they suspended their ridiculous "rule" until after Memorial Day.

What the hell is happening in America? We do live in America, right? I thought we did. I bet you if you went to Canada, Mexico, England, Germany, Japan, you would see their flags flying all over the place and nobody would have anything to say about it. When did it become offensive to fly our own country's flag INSIDE OUR OWN COUNTRY? And who is offended by our flag? People that are visiting here? People that were born here? People that are here illegally? Too bad for all of them. If they don't like to see the flag of America while in America, they are free to leave and go elsewhere. I am incensed by this insanity.

When I was growing up, we pledged allegiance to our flag every day in school. Every child placed their hand on their heart and said that pledge. Have we forgotten our pledge, people? Do we no longer feel any allegiance to our flag and what it stands for? I am a big NHL Hockey fan. I watch most Boston Bruins games every season. When they perform the Star Spangled Banner before a game, I am stunned at how few people sing it, take their hats off, or at least remain silent during it's performance. When they play O Canada at a Canadian hockey game, most of the crowd is singing loudly. Why don't we do that here anymore? Are we ashamed to be Americans?

I think it is imperative to let a US war veteran display his flag, the flag he gladly put his life on the line to defend, anywhere or anytime he chooses. That is and should be the default position on this issue for anyone that chooses to display the American flag. As long as your flag does not impede any one's view you should be able to show your patriotism. Loving your country is not a slap in the face to anyone. It is a show of solidarity.

So as we approach Memorial Day, it is even more important than ever to show our allegiance to our country, display all American flags that you own, and not be persecuted for doing so. I hope everyone emails, phones, and shows up to that property manager's office with a flag to protest his stupidity.

There is a law about this(Freedom to Display the American Flag Act 2005) but it applies to people that own condos and apartments, not renters like the Prices.

That flag in question is located at:
Brookside Apartments, Oshkosh, WI

Run by
Midwest Realty Management
Oshkosh, Wisconsin

The veteran who is being harassed is Charlie Price and his wife Dawn. Dawn has created a Facebook page: Freedom to Display the American Flag...join to show your support.

Almost Time for Wipeout

The Summer is almost here. I can tell. All of the good TV shows have either had their season finales or those finales will be upon us in the next few days. When these are through, at the end of the May Sweeps period, there is always a summer drought on TV. I usually use this drought to get caught up on other things...movies I have not seen, books I bought or borrowed but have not read, projects around the house.

The way I can tell summer is almost here is that there was just a commercial on TV for the absolutely brainless show, "Wipeout." I have seen this show a couple of times to see what the hullabaloo was all about. Basically grown men and women agree to jump from inflated obstacle to inflated moving obstacle, getting bounced off of them into a giant pit of mud and water. The obstacles get slippery pretty fast. People hit their heads, backs, necks on the obstacles. Frankly, just watching it, I am surprised nobody has died doing this inane show. It is a total train wreck to be sure. Is this really the best they have to offer us in the summer when they have a captive audience?

During the year we get all the TV writer's attention. They give us the medical dramas, the cliffhangers; the legal conundrums, the police cases ripped from the recent headlines, the sitcoms, the major TV stars and the 4 star reality shows like the Amazing Race. During the summer we get trash. We get things that were too lame to get onto the regular fall or winter TV rotation. We get contrived reality shows, dramas and comedies that were not quite ready for prime time and only had 8 episodes made; it is truly a vast wasteland and a good time to occupy yourself with more substantive activities.

I know this is kind of a fluff topic but considering the dearth of bad news this week--the continued and ever growing oil slick in the Gulf, the stock market tanking yet again, unrest in Thailand, the Koreas, Jamaica, etc., the thought of mindless television could possibly be just what the doctor ordered.

Instead of checking your 401K and watching it go down like a sinking ship, instead of imagining the worst case scenario in the Gulf..no more fishing ever, oil spreading all over the East coast beaches, gas prices skyrocketing, you can sit back and watch a bunch of morons being bounced all over the place off of large inflated tubes, balls, platforms into pits of mud. It is positively cave man-esque, but needed in these troubling times we live in. Maybe the TV execs actually have our best interests at heart. It is summer. We need a break, we need a break from all of the seriousness of daily life and they are going to give it to us in short order!! Enjoy!!

And The Winner Is...........

Well, another lottery drawing has come and gone and my fantasies will have to wait. I crumple up the Powerball ticket and toss it into the trash. No matches, not even 1 number. There is a game I play in my mind every time I buy a Powerball or Megamillions ticket. The game is probably familiar to a lot of people. It is a sort of "what would I do with all those millions, would I take the cash payout, or the annuity? Would I spend a lot, save a lot, tell people, not tell people, pick up the money anonymously, or have a press conference, tell the kids, not tell the kids, move, change my phone number...yada, yada, yada.


The most fun part of this game is planning out who gets what. There would be the new car for Mom and the chauffeur driven limo for Dad. I would love to go to the car dealership with them and let them pick out absolutely anything they want with any options they want. I would also make sure their land use fee was paid in full for years to come so they could just sit back and enjoy their home. Dad would not have to work unless he really wanted to keep working there. I would send them on that Alaskan cruise they want to take. As for my inlaws, I would get them some central air conditioning for their house; although the house is not built for it, money can buy anything. They are not big on travel but I would do the car buying thing with them as well, and pay their property tax off into the future. I would top all this off with hearing aids, dental work, and Lasik eye surgery for any of the 4 that is game.


My siblings would fair pretty well too when I win. A house for sis, pay off brother's mortgage, upgrade brother in law's automotive garage, college funds for all the nieces and nephews. Maybe a few more new cars all around. I have also toyed with the idea of building a large family compound with several houses for any family members that want to live close to each other but maybe using this as a vacation spot would work better. We would all drive each other crazy if we lived too close year round!!


Then I turn my focus to my own family. There is a school of thought that says if you give kids too much they will never learn how to work hard, to achieve, they will never strive to be anything. I am of that school of thought. So with millions in the bank, I would tell my kids to go out, get their educations, and get a job. It will be a hard pill for them to swallow. They will be expecting to live like princes, yet they will end up living amongst and like the commoners. If they are to amount to anything in life, it cannot all be handed to them at such an early age. Ok, maybe I would allow for some new cars for them, maybe an apartment for the older child when he is ready, but he can buy his food, pay his bills, etc for a while. We hear about the spoiled brats of the world, like Paris Hilton, who are famous for being rich and have absolutely no redeeming qualities. I don't want my kids to end up like that. They are both wonderful human beings and I would hate for money to ruin them. So that is what I will tell them as I decline to fork over megabucks to facilitate their every whim.

My husband will want a new car or two or three and new garages to hold them. He will want new computers, and probably a few other gadgets. I don't begrudge him those. After all, multi millions of dollars can be spread pretty far. He will want to travel, as will I. Maybe we can do it first class too. That would be really nice. Hawaii, Europe, Cruises, etc.

Back to me. I have always told my family and BFF that if I ever hit the lottery, the only 2 things I would want is a) a personal trainer to come to my house every day and assist me in having some willpower!! and B) a personal chef that can make me low calorie, healthy food so I don't have to even think about it. I want to live like Oprah in that way, only I want to actually lose the weight!! I could handle getting a larger kitchen, maybe a sewing/crafts room in my house, a larger garage, and some exercise equipment to assist my personal trainer in their quest to help me. And that is about it. I probably would not want to move. I like my house and my neighborhood. I could get a new car but I am not big on cars so I would not get as big a thrill from that as they boys in my house do.

Then lastly, I love the option of donating large chunks of money to charity; but I would research the organizations a little bit more to make sure they spend the money the way I want it to be spent. I usually donate to the same few charities: JDRF, ADA, and Joslin Diabetes Center- for Diabetes, CFF for Cystic Fibrosis, Homes for our Troops- builds handicapped accessible homes for injured vets-comprised completely of donated labor and materials, Big Brother Big Sister, American Cancer Society.

When you hear about somebody winning $200 million dollars, it is hard to comprehend how someone could spend all of that in a lifetime. I am not sure I would ever come close.

There are downsides to winning a large jackpot. There would be the people coming out of the woodwork looking to you for loans, and handouts, long lost relatives that want a piece of you, people purposely injuring themselves on your property to sue you, "friends" that are jealous of your sudden wealth and decide not to be friends anymore--well, they were not your real friends to begin with anyway if they act like that.You might have to unlist your phone number or get a new one. You might have to hire body guards. Your children might have to go to private schools. Your life may change in ways that are not positive at all. I think most people that buy lottery tickets don 't even imagine any downsides at all but they exist.

On the other hand, it might be fun to live like a queen for a short time! The idea of it is probably actually more fulfilling than the actual living it though. You may be disappointed to see that money doesn't change who you are and how happy you are. Money won't make you happy, as I always tell my kids. I know plenty of very wealthy people that are unhappy people. I know plenty of people struggling to make ends meet that are overall very happy. It may help to put a (nice) roof over your head, clothes on your back, food in the fridge, and stuff in your rooms, but it cannot fulfill you as a person. That part is up to you and not your wallet.

Still, I will continue to buy a lottery ticket when the spirit moves me and then I can again float into the fantasy world of who gets what and in what color. It is fun and it is cathartic to think about. I picture my winning the lottery resembling more of a "millionaire next door" model...we would have some fun and then get back to our life, rather than a tycoon model. That is just not who I am or who I would want to be.

The Lengths A Parent Will Go To

I am the parent of a child that was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes(also called Type 1 Diabetes) at age 3. His diagnosis was a very traumatic event and it changed the course of our lives forever. At first it was the getting used to the daily care needed to try to get a 3 year old's blood sugar remotely into a range. It was a huge challenge, and a very stressful and scary time. We had lots of blood sugar highs and lows all the time. I had to poke his tiny fingers 6 to 8 times a day and jab him with injections 4-6 times a day. That was heartbreaking.

I don't think I slept all the way through the night for 5 years after his diagnosis. I was always worried his blood sugar would go so low during the night that he would lapse into a coma. There were many times I woke up in the middle of the night with an intuition that something with him was not right and I immediately went in to check his blood sugar. More times than not when I had awoken out of a dead sleep thinking about his blood sugar, his blood sugar ended up being dangerously low. This phenomenon freaked me out a lot. I worried that there would be a time where my intuition would not wake me up. Or that there would be a time where I woke up and decided to go back to sleep instead of getting up to check on him. That guilt and stress of that kept me up at night for years.

Fast forward to 5 years after diagnosis. My son went on an insulin pump at age 8 and we could all finally get some good sleep. The insulin pump helped us to regulate his blood sugar at night far better than what we had managed to do with injections. It is rare for him to be low in the middle of the night now, but if he is, his body usually wakes him up because he feels really unwell when he is low.

Now that my son is almost 16, I have many different concerns about him related to his Diabetes. My main concern is that HE IS A TEENAGER and teens don't want to be different, don't want their parents looking over their shoulder at every moment, and don't want to have to deal with having Diabetes. He is primarily responsible for his daily management now, it was a long and arduous transition from me to him. I served as his artificial pancreas all throughout his childhood. I would get his blood sugar numbers and decide how much insulin to give him or how much food he needed. I did the job a healthy pancreas usually does. I have since pretty much hung up my pancreas hat and given the job to him. It is really hard not to stay involved with it after doing it for so long.

During our journey with Diabetes, I have made many friends and done many Diabetes related things. My family is involved with JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation), we run a local walk to raise funds for JDRF. I also deliver a special care package to families of newly diagnosed children that live in my area. They send people like me out to these families to try to ease the pain and worry that the first few weeks after diagnosis can bring; to extend a hand of friendship and compassion.

As a parent, you would do anything for your child. When they are hurt you want the hurt to go away. When they are sad, you do or say anything to help them get over the cause of the sadness. When they have a serious chronic illness, it is devastating each and every day. You watch as your child bravely soldiers on despite all that he has to deal with. You want to take that illness from them, you want to make it better, and yet you can't. It is beyond frustrating.

The one thing that has evaded me though in all of these 12 years since his diagnosis is the feeling that I am making a difference in getting a cure to him. I am not a scientist, or a researcher, or a doctor. I wish I was. Maybe then I could take a more direct role in finding a cure for Type 1 Diabetes. It is an awful disease and it is especially awful for a young child to have to deal with it.
I want to know that feeling that I was instrumental in making him well.

It is frustrating thinking about how politics and financial concerns may shape when a cure becomes available and what that cure will be. The best funded researchers are more likely to get their discoveries into trials. The lesser funded researchers may have the best ideas but those ideas may never see the light of day without a large infusion of cash. It feels awful being so cynical, but I am afraid that is the reality of most disease research. Large pharmaceutical companies don't research, hold trials, and produce new drugs out of some desire to cure people, they do it to make money, lots and lots of money.

I recently saw the movie, "Extraordinary Measures," with Bredan Fraser, Harrison Ford and Keri Russell. It is the true story of the Crowley family; This family has 3 children; 2 of which have a rare debilitating genetic disease called Pompe Disease. At the time these children were suffering with Pompe, the life expectancy was 8 years, and there was no known treatment or cure for it at that time. Pompe is a degenerative disease of the muscles and organs.

In the movie, John Crowley, the dad who is a biotech businessman, decides he cannot sit by and watch his children die slowly of this disease. He contacts a scientist, who has published many articles and has been recognized as an authority that is working on a treatment for Pompe, but this scientist has very little funding to bring his theory to a working solution. To make a long story short, John goes to every extreme to convince this curmudgeonly scientist/doctor to work on making this treatment a reality for his children.

In the end, John Crowley was the one who was instrumental in getting a treatment made for his children. He never gave up and he helped thousands in the process. I really admire that man! His children are still alive and improving.

There are many brilliant scientists working on possible routes to a cure for Juvenile Diabetes. So far, though, none is very close to being proven. Daily management protocols change every few years with the advent of new/better/smaller/faster technologies. Still, even with better management, people with Type 1 Diabetes face a daunting daily routine and possible awful complications of they don't stick closely to their routine. Insulin is not a cure for this disease, it is only the liquid that is keeping people alive to receive a cure.

I can only hope that at least some of the people that are working on finding a cure for Juvenile Diabetes have a family connection. If you have a loved one that is dealing with this disease, nothing will stop you from seeking a cure for this disease, especially if this loved one is your child. That is how I feel, but since I am not in research or medicine, I will have to continue what I do and hope and pray that cure comes flying around the corner soon. I highly recommend the movie Extraordinary Measures for anyone that has a child with a chronic or life threatening disease. It is a movie about character, a parent's love and a parent's endless strength when it comes to protecting his family.

No Way in New York City!!

I was stunned to read the other day that there were plans for a large 13 story Mosque to be built 2 blocks from Ground Zero in New York City. So I have one question about this.....where is Political Correctness on this issue? This is an absolute affront to all New Yorkers and Americans who suffered losses on September 11, 2001. I am shocked that this proposal would be able to go forward. I am sure without a doubt that in this economy there have to be many hundreds of thousands of square footage of available building space all over Manhattan for a Mosque to be located. Why was this site chosen?

I find it hard to believe that anyone who practices "mainstream" Islam would feel comfortable flaunting their religion in the shadows of so much pain and suffering. Moderate Muslims should agree that this may not be a good plan. I hope they would not want to offend anyone, the same way they are so concerned about being offended themselves.

This idea is fraught with the potential to polarize New York City and to incite possible violence or hate crimes. Lets also consider those radical Muslims and Al Quaeda operatives that are in this country and maybe even living in New York City; this Mosque will serve as an "in your face" endorsement of their point of view. We can do what we want to you and you are too wimpy to do anything about it-to stand up for yourselves. We win!

There have been many different plans for a memorial to be built on the actual site of the 2 World Trade Center towers. Not much building is happening there at this time. There has been an awful lot of infighting amongst developers and families of victims who died on that site as to how to best memorialize the victims. Whatever is built should be respectful and mindful that almost 3000 souls lost their lives there that day. A Mosque that would be steps away from this Memorial would be tantamount to a constant reminder of WHO perpetrated this crime and WHO has not denounced all of the terrorism that for now seems to be speaking for their religion. When you go to a cemetery you do not want to see a special monument to the person/organization that took the life of your loved one. There are other locations for that and the two should be separated by a long distance. One should not be within eyesight of the other.

The bigger issue here is Political Correctness. The powers that be are afraid to say no to anyone that is Muslim for fear of offending them. That is an ass backwards stance in this situation. The ones that will be offended here are the ones that were attacked and terrorized by Radical Muslims. Rational thought needs to be applied here. There has to be limits to what we can allow to happen in the name of sane reason. It is not unreasonable for NYC officials to ask the Muslims to locate their new Mosque far away from that site; they are not being told they cannot build a Mosque, just that they need to respect the honor of those that died by the hand of religious zealots on a murderous crusade.

I have attached a couple of relevant photos to this blog today. Sorry for the amateurish layout!!One is a photo I took in 1986 when my husband and I went to the top of the World Trade Center observation floor and took pictures. It is so eerie to see the shadow of the 2 WTC towers in my photo. Never in a million years would I have believed how prophetic those photos would be. The other photo is of a view of the New York City skyline in 2009 from Jersey City. In the foreground of the photo is a piece of the World Trade Center that was brought across the Hudson to serve as a makeshift memorial.

When you see these photos, I defy you NOT to get a lump in your throat. Now, with said lump picture a 13 story Mosque in that Skyline near where the WTC skyscrapers used to be. It is maddening, horrifying and downright unbelievable. This has to be prevented. Not in New York City; there no way to justify this in the United States of America.

A Serious Violation of Personal Space

This morning, a stranger rang and rang and rang my doorbell frantically at 10:45AM. I have a policy of not answering my door if I am not expecting someone. Call me paranoid, but when I am alone in the house, I am not going to open my door to a stranger. Most people knocking are either trying to sell something or trying to sell something under the guise of getting you to "sign a petition." No thanks. I gave at the office. If someone I know is there, I will open it however.

I have heard all the horror stories of people being killed, raped, robbed, etc. by opening their door up to a stranger. Now, I live in suburbia, mind you. Manicured lawns, trees, driveways with pretty mailboxes all surround my safe neighborhood. But it is not a gated community and most of my neighbors are not home during the day. Being in suburbia can lull people into a false sense of security sometimes.

With that in mind, I did not answer the door. The next thing I know, I saw a stranger open the fence to my backyard, come in and sprint up onto my deck and begin pounding on my back french door. I was standing in the room where the french door is and was started to see a stranger motioning for me to open the door! Was he f*&^ing kidding? As if!! So I said to him, "get out of my yard." He asked if I could hear him. I could. He asked if I had the Mustang that was for sale and if my house was for sale. I told him no and no. He asked if this was Whipple Street. Could he not read the large road sign at the end of the street or the name of the street on my mailbox? Again, I said no and repeated, get out of my yard NOW.

He bolted off the porch, walked through my gate, through my front yard and got in a car around the corner and drove off. This man gave me the creeps. He was dressed for another season. He had a heavy NY accent, long leather jacket (it was 65 degrees out) and sunglasses. He clearly stuck out in Suburban Massachusetts. Maybe he was just rude or stupid, but maybe he was up to no good, casing the joint. There's my criminal justice degree working in my head!

I was about to be on my way to an appointment at the time this happened but was hesitant to leave my poor Lily alone after the incident. I did go and when I got home all seemed ok.

In analyzing this episode of weirdness, I came to this conclusion. I was STARTLED by the rudeness of this man. My fenced in back yard is my personal space. Nobody is allowed in my FENCED yard unless they are invited and I know them. For him to just fly into my backyard felt really wrong. So either he was totally clueless regarding manners,or he didn't give a crap and did it anyway. He was anxious to talk to whoever he thought was home.

I was also a little scared. I don't own a gun. I am not a gun advocate; not a member of the NRA. I hate gun violence and I think a society where civilians don't posses any guns would be a much less violent society. That being said, I really wish I had a piece to wave at this jerk's face today!! Go ahead punk, make my day. I don't like feeling threatened in any way and maybe this was a totally innocent, rude mistake by some ill mannered idiot, but for a brief moment, I became alarmed.

This to me was an example of somebody crossing the line of personal space. A person's house and the surrounding property, particularly if it is enclosed with fencing, are an extension of their personal space. Mine was violated today.

We have all spoken to people who have no clue about personal space. They are the ones that stand a little too close, speak with their head too close to your head, stand too close for comfort while in a line, put their things too close to your things in the airport queue. We have all experienced these people and let's face it, they make us uncomfortable.

One other issue clearly in play here today was manners. I really think that even if a person knows what is proper, many times they don't' follow the protocol because they are too lazy or just don't care. This ultimately leads to chaos and misunderstandings. Maybe this intruder just didn't care and was only thinking of whatever information he needed and didn't give a thought to invading my yard. If so, shame on him. More people need to be conscious of etiquette and what is proper.

If you want to be in my yard, my husband, my kids or I need to invite you or to have hired you to do some work in the yard. I always have this policy. You know that if some stranger fell and got hurt in my yard they would sue me for sure! This is not primarily why I have the policy I have. I want people to do the right thing. This is not a mi casa es su casa situation. My property is for my family and my close friends but that is all. We do not live in a commune or a collective. I don't want to have to be responsible for anyone that I did not allow to be in my yard.

So to summarize, the intruder was either very rude or a potential criminal. Either way, I am not happy about it. He had a hell of a nerve doing what he did. Next time, I will look around and try to grab whatever weapon I can find in the family room and adjacent kitchen to fend him off. Today, that would have included one of several vases, lamps, a full laundry basket, a baseball bat, and a tool holder full of Pampered Chef tools and a block of kitchen knives. So watch out rude man! I am on to you now and I am packing rolling pin!!

Maybe a Witch-Doctor Would Be Better?

I am a person that does not visit the doctor unless something is very wrong. I don't go for colds, I don't go if I think I have sprained something. I don't even go for bad cuts unless I can't get them to stop bleeding. One reason I don't go that often is that I have had several experiences that have left me less than satisfied with my health care.

Back in my 20's I had experienced a period of close to a year of dizziness, heart palpitations, and extreme fatigue. I was a person who took good care of myself. I ate well, got lots of aerobic exercise, kept my weight down, didn't smoke, and didn't drink that much. I had no reason to believe that my lifestyle was causing my ill feelings. At that time, I visited many doctors to try to figure out what was causing these debilitating symptoms. None of the doctors came up with any diagnosis for my situation. I was so discouraged.

I took it upon myself to do a lot of reading and discovered that Mitral Valve Prolapse fit all of my symptoms. I decided that maybe I had MVP and took it upon myself to do the things they recommended for you to do if you in fact had MVP. I drank LOTS of water, exercised, stayed away from caffeine and sugar. Guess what? My symptoms disappeared after a few weeks of this "treatment." I felt so much better. For years I didn't have any more of these symptoms.

Then, in my mid 30's I had a stressful year of moving out of state, young children, etc and started having heart issues again. This time, the issues seemed more severe. My husband took me to a renowned hospital in Boston and had a workup with a Cardiologist including a treadmill stress test. The doctor said they found no evidence of any heart condition and that in my case, a "little pill" read: tranquilizer, might do the trick. OK, so this man was telling me it was in my head! I am sorry, when you can feel your heart skip a beat, I don't see how this is in your head. Again feeling let down by medicine, I took it upon myself to figure it out and I realized I had stopped my exercise regimen and had not been drinking enough water. Back to it I went and again, the symptoms began to recede. No "little pill" necessary.

Fast forward to my early 40s. I started having gastro issues; I had constant stomach pain, all over my stomach, not just in one region. It really felt awful. This was another cluster of visits to doctors--urologist to rule out kidney, bladder issues, gastroenterologist to do lots of blood work, analyze my diet, etc. Many tests and appointments later, oila...I got the generic diagnosis of IBS. Irritable Bowel Syndrome is what they diagnose you with when they don't know what the cause of your problems are. It is a generic diagnosis with no meaningful treatment. Eat lots of fiber, drink water, exercise, lower stress. OK, I was already doing that. So again, I was not impressed or even helped by my doctor or any doctor I saw.

Last fall, I had a physical and received a pneumonia shot instead of a flu shot. I was not thrilled with the idea of an H1N1 shot because I had had reactions to flu shots in the past. Well, I had a whopper of a reaction to the pneumonia shot, it was arthritic in nature; I had joint pain and muscle pain all over for at least 10 days. I returned to my primary care Dr. to talk to him about it and he told me it couldn't be the pneumonia shot that did that to me, it must be a virus! A few weeks later, at the allergist, I mentioned this to the Allergy Dr. and he was SURE that I had experienced "serum sickness" from the pneumonia shot. He said it had about 40 components in it and if I had ever been exposed to any of them in the past, once I got the pneumonia shot my body's immune system went into overdrive and caused all the muscle aches and joint pain! HOOOAAAA! Finally someone confirmed what I knew to be true. That was a good feeling that someone confirmed it was not all "in my head" or some random virus.

I suppose all of these instances explain my lack of enthusiasm for going to the doctor. I almost never get any help from the doctor so why go? It seems that I always have to hash it out myself.
I had that experience again today. I won't list my age...I am still in my 40's suffice it to say!! Here I am, allergies in full swing even though I have gotten allergy shots for the last 7 years. They have helped me immensely in years past but this year, not so much. After weeks and weeks of nasal drainage, coughing and a throat and neck that feel, for the lack of a better term, "puffy," I went to my primary care doctor to make sure I had not developed a secondary infection. My swollen glands are obvious even just looking at my neck. It hurts in my ear intermittently. I HATE going to the doctor though because for some reason, I always get--"you are under too much stress," or ,'Just take this drug". Neither of these works for me.

I am a person that hates taking medication. My body is hypersensitive to everything I take; they all seem to make me drowsy, dizzy, nauseous, etc. So if it says "take 2" I usually only take 1. That being said, I went in to my primary care doc today to have him look inside my throat, ears, nose, listen to my breathing only to have him tell me they all sound and look fine. FINE? If that is the case, why do I feel so shitty? That is what I should have said. He really had no other explanation or recommendation other than to write me a script for Flonase. I filled the script hesitantly because Flonase is a corticosteroid. I am loathe to take that unless I REALLY have to. And I can say now that I read the insert, I am even more hesitant to take it. The list of contraindications and side effects etc, is really scary. This bottle will probably get relegated to the back of my closet while I figure out my diagnosis and treatment on my own. I should have gone to medical school!! My degree in Criminal Justice is just not helping me diagnose myself at all.

It feels I have been brushed aside once again by the doctor. What do I have to do to get a real diagnosis or to get him to pay attention and listen? Do I have to have TB? Brain Tumor? Is is that hard to listen to the patient and make an educated guess, something other than, "it should resolve when the pollen level goes down?" I am not aking for a miracle, just a smarter doctor, I guess!

If I were a hypochondriac, maybe I should expect this kind of treatment, but I am hardly EVER at the doctor's office. He hadn't seen me in 3 years until a I had a physical last fall. Maybe he is confusing me with Mrs. Von Munchhausen that comes in every 2 weeks with yet another random ailment.

The real bummer is in our current state of health care, there are almost NO reputable primary care doctors taking new patients. For every doctor that someone has recommended to me, NONE OF THEM ARE TAKING NEW PATIENTS. I fear the future. Not only will I be stuck with Dr. X for the foreseeable future, there is no end in sight for me to become a new patient of Dr.Y. And worst of all, there may be no new Dr. Y's coming out of Medical School. Who would want to go into primary care; the pay is low, the malpractice high.

I know there are some really good doctors out there. My son with Diabetes has a great doctor. I am happy with my Allergist. There are some examples of good doctors that my friends and family have used. In general, though, I feel that these days, you have to be your own health advocate, read up on your condition, ask the RIGHT questions of your doctor and be willing to contradict what they say if you know it to be incorrect. After all, they may be the expert (?) on the textbook medicine but you are the expert of your body.

As women, we more often get the impression that doctors think it is all "in our head." That serves to make us trust them less, use them less, and wait until we are really truly very sick until we go to them rather than using them to prevent any serious illness. This is something that needs to change. Tell me it is in my head if I have been there 10 times this month. One office visit every 3 years does not qualify me for "all in your head, or due to too much stress!" diagnoses!

Meanwhile, if you have a good primary care Doc in the MetroWest Boston area, preferably female, that is taking new patients, please let me know because I am really tired of this!!

Bad News Overload

Do you ever watch or read the news and feel seriously depressed afterward? Is it me or are we being bombarded day and night with awful news? It is becoming harder and harder to find anything positive to focus on each day if you are aware of what is going on in the world.

First there are the natural disasters. It feels like at least once a week, we are dealing with the aftermath of a tornado or two, an earthquake in some remote 3rd world setting, devastating fires, floods, sinkholes, mudslides or draught. It is hard to comprehend and to keep feeling empathy for all of the people that suffer from these disasters. You only have SO MUCH empathy. You would be feeling sorry all day long if you really paid close attention to all the natural disasters that happen on a daily basis. The earth is a violent place in that context. The oceans, the land and the atmosphere are constantly in flux and wreaking havoc as they shift and reshape themselves each day.

Then there are the man made disasters. There are tons of those; we are responsible for them and we hear about them around the clock. There are the murders, the rapes, property crimes. There is devastation in financial markets, loss of jobs, pollution, terrorism, piracy, plane crashes, car crashes, child abuse, bridge collapses, train derailments, ships sinking, endless wars.

Are you depressed yet? I am!!

I am what I would consider a news hound. I look at the news online several times a day. For some reason, I want to be on the cutting edge of knowing what the up to the minute latest news is. This is purely an internet phenomenon for me. I was never this addicted to the news before the internet. As a matter of fact, I didn't even have a newspaper subscription. There were days, especially when my children were young, that I didn't even know the current news. If I didn't have time to catch the headlines on TV, the news day would just pass me by and I would be none the worse for the wear.

Sometimes I think I should try to take a day off from news headlines. I might feel more relaxed and less stressed if I did. What harm would come to me if I was unaware of an earthquake in Indonesia, a flood in South America? What if I didn't hear about the latest shooting in Dorchester, or the most recent plane crash? And what if I didn't get the latest Bimbo count in the Tiger Woods saga? Would I feel out of the loop? I know this, when I hear the news a day or two after it has happened I always feel like I missed the boat and I can never get caught up with the information.

This is not a new phenomenon for me. This is not the product of unemployment. I was a news hound when I was working too. When I took a break, I would always pop onto Fox News or CNN websites to get updated on the latest. I do have more time now to analyze what I see though and thus have a blog to rant about it!!

What does this all mean for us as a culture, us as humans? It means nothing big can happen without everyone around the world knowing about it. A major disaster occurs and an almost instantaneous charity fund is set up to help the victims. A child is abused and there is a flood of calls from people willing to adopt the child. People are left homeless from a fire and piles of clothing and household goods are donated from all over.

There is really nothing we can do to change the 24/7 availability of information. It is the world we live in now. We can opt to be informed, hyper-informed (like me) or ill-informed. That part is up to the individual. We can take a news break or a technology vacation. It is probably a good idea for everyone to do that once in a while. Vacation is a great time to try to do that; it will help with relaxation and enjoyment of personal time.

W can also try, in our news hound sniffing ways, to find the tiny amount of positive news each day. We can look for it. It is possible to find something to be happy about every day in the news. You just have to look harder. Good news doesn't usually make headlines.

A lot of bad news stories have positive elements in them. The one that springs into my head is the story of Sully Sullenberger, the pilot that landed the airplane in the Hudson River last year and saved the lives of every person on board his plane. You can't help but smile and feel proud of him when you think of how that story could have gone. It was freezing cold that day, he was an older man, with a plane full of people. He had almost no other options than to land the plane in the water, a feat that usually ends in disaster. He not only landed it smoothly without any power, he made sure each and every person was off the plane and rescued before he left the plane. He is the true definition of a hero in my book, and his actions were nothing short of miraculous.

Almost every time there is an earthquake in a 3rd world setting, they find someone that has survived,against all odds, having been buried by rubble for many days. That's another example of a positive story inside the bad news. If you can't find a whole positive news story, at least try to look for the silver lining in that dark cloud story. They are there, you just have to dig.

As for me, I will probably continue to be a news hound. That is the essence of Ivy2010. She is heavily news driven. Maybe my next version will be less news centric; more centered on the ethereal. We will have to wait and see where Ivy2011 and life takes me!

Take a Breath,then Think of Him

As I sit to write this blog today, a good friend and long time neighbor is in the hospital waiting and praying for a lung transplant. He is not an old man, he is only in his mid 40's. He is a family man, a husband, a dad and a salt of the earth good person. He is one of the mentally strongest people I know and he has fought the good fight to stay alive to be there for his family.

Now he is at the mercy of the organ transplantation system. He is at the top of the list and he has a fairly rare blood type; so far, he has waited over a year for his miracle to come. Our friend has Cystic Fibrosis and literally has not had one day of breathing easy in his life. His family has endured year after year of watching his ability to take a breath decline. He has spent time every year in the hospital, and much time every day coping with all of the problems CF brings. Through all of this he has remained positive and strong and determined more than ever to stick around for the long haul.

When someone has a tragic accident and ends up "brain dead," the family is placed in the position of having to make a decision as to whether or not to donate his/her organs. If the person has designated on their driver's license that they want to be an organ donor, perhaps this takes the onus off of the family--the decision is already made. It must then be hard to watch the loved one whisked away to surgery and to know that they will lose parts of their body before they are laid to rest, but if you think about the miracle that can come from this awful circumstance, perhaps it makes it a little bit easier to take.

If you knew my friend the way we know him, you would realize what a miracle that would be. He wants so desperately to live and live as full and as long a life as he possibly can. His daughters deserve to have their Dad around for as long as possible. And his wife has kept the home fires burning when he has spent time every year in the hospital. She has kept the family running, kept up the hope and prayers that someone will save her husband in the midst of their own tragedy.

I urge you to become an organ donor if you are not one already. It is a lot easier for me to be one because I know someone who would greatly benefit from everyone being a donor. It makes it real for me and it makes it clear that it is the right thing to do. As long as people are dying senseless accidental deaths every day, and they are, why not try to make something positive come out of something so negative and horrible?

I know there are some that for religious reasons are opposed to the idea of donating organs, but I ask you to honestly explore this question: if your child was in need of an organ transplant in order to live, would you have the luxury of putting your religion before your child's life? Would you want a potential donor match to opt not to donate an organ to your child because of their religion or yours? It is a lot easier to apply this in theory than in reality when your own family is at stake.

When you have to renew your driver's license next time, think of my friend and all the thousands of other people waiting for a chance to renew their lives with the unselfish gift of organ donation. It is the ultimate in charity and selflessness. If you are already an organ donor, thank you. You are my hero.

A Sodding Paradox

Today was a lovely spring day. It was sunny, not hot, a bit breezy, all in all a perfect day to do some gardening. Mind you, I would much rather plant flowers and pull weeds than the type of gardening I needed to do today. Today I needed to remove sod, a LOT of sod from between and in front of 21 Hosta plants I planted about 6 weeks ago.

This chore was born out of my stupidity and impatience. When I got the idea to plant the Hostas, there was not much grass growing, it was early April. I figured I would get out there and dig the holes, plant the Hosta plants and worry about the sod in a week or so. I planted the Hostas, but then the weather got crazy, we had tons of rain, it was cold, it was hot, the air was incredibly laden with pine pollen ; as a result, all of this time has gone by and the grass has grown all around and in front of all of the plants. :-( Big grass, thick grass, grass that is growing where I don't want it to grow.

So out I went today to try and remove all of it and then I will lay down some mulch to pretty it up. As I sat there, and stood there, and knelt there pulling and tugging at the sod, dirt flying in my face and up my nose, I was thinking about how ridiculous it is that I had to GET RID of grass in one spot and we can't, to save our lives, get grass to grow a few hundred feet away from that! Before you even think of it, I did not have the energy nor the desire to do a "sod transplant" today. Moving it from one location to the other is just too much work. It never fits right and it looks patchy. It was just annoying that in one area I want it and in one area I don't and those were the reverse of the reality.

In a way, it reminded me of my early 20's. When all of my friends and I were that age, we spent our single and early married years trying desperately NOT to get pregnant. It was not the right time, not the right guy, not the right bank balance. Then when our life situations changed, we tried and tried hard to get pregnant. For some, it took a long time to do so. I remember when the time was the right time for us, -thinking how weird it felt to WANT to get pregnant having spent most of my 20's trying to avoid it at all costs. It was a total shift of mentality.

I know grass has nothing to do with being pregnant, but the paradox of wanting and not wanting the same thing at different times or in different places seems parallel.

Maybe it was the soil I inhaled when fighting with the sod that made me come up with this comparison. Maybe it was the flock of mosquitoes buzzing around my head and neck driving me insane at the time. Maybe it was the low blood sugar I got from the exhausting chore at hand. I am not sure which it is. But there are times in life when we want something and can't have it; then we don't care anymore about it and it comes to us. Then there are occasions when we want something and it isn't the way we want it or where we want it so we have to make adjustments.

One other paradox in this story is that my allergies were horrendous this morning when I was in my house. I just spent 3 hours outside in the source of the pollen and the allergies seem better. I am not sure what happened but I will take that as a gift! For some reason when I was near the pine trees and in the grass, the pollen that was swirling all around me didn't bother me. Now that I am inside, I will prepare to start sneezing and wheezing again.

There is no moral to this rant other than do the sod removal before the planting. It will be easier and will look better as soon as you plant. And as for pregnancy, after celebrating Mother's Day yesterday, I can safely say I am very happy and lucky I did it twice!

Is Generation Y Going Haywire?

It has to be the worst nightmare for any parent. You get that call...the call that anyone with a child would dread getting. It is some law enforcement agent telling you your child has been murdered.

You would think this would be an exceedingly rare occurrence. It is so heinous and so unforgivable that only the person on the absolute fringe of society would commit such an act. Yet each month, it seems, we hear another instance of some young person killing some other young person and a lot of times a motive for the murder is elusive.


I try to remember if all of this kid on kid violence went on when I was growing up? Maybe. Maybe my family shielded us from the awful news. Maybe the media only covered a news story if it were relevant to the area in which I lived. I do know this: whether it is truth or just perception, it seems like kids are killing kids at an alarming rate and for virtually no reason.

The answer as to whether the incidence of youth on youth murder that occurred during our childhood was as prevalent as it is today can be found at this link. Apparently it did, and it did a long time before that too. This is a chart of school centered murders and massacres from elementary through college by year. It made me gasp to see the sheer number of incidents and how far back they began keeping records of these crimes. This chart includes any incidents that occurred and were on record all over the world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school-related_attacks



The middle and high school shootings, the shootings and stabbings on college campuses, the drive by shootings every night in Boston, LA, Detroit, Miami, Chicago and all major cities in the US illustrate the point that for some reason, a lot of kids in Generation Y seem to place little value on human life. They are so used to the awful headlines that they really aren't even afraid anymore.This is the world THEY have grown up in. I can't imagine going to school and having to worry about somebody coming in and assassinating friends and teachers. That is out of the realm of my experience and it seems terrifying to me. Our kids have grown up after the Columbine massacre; in a time where lock down drills go hand in hand with fire drills at school.



There was a trial in the news recently in Massachusetts. A young man, John Odgren, 16, stabbed a freshman, James Alenson,15, to death in the boys bathroom in 2007 at the Lincoln-Sudbury High School in Sudbury, a suburb of Boston. Odgren didn't know Alenson. He just felt compelled to kill somebody that day and Alenson had the bad luck of being the next one to come through the bathroom door.

John Odgren has Asperger's Syndrome, a condition that is on the Autism Spectrum; it had also been suggested that he is bi-polar and has ADD. One other thing that was mentioned was that he had been bullied at school and had been suicidal. All of those situations taken together could paint a picture of a very troubled person. The defense attorney tried to convince the jury that his client was temporarily insane right before he killed the other student. I know a little bit about Asperger's and I never heard the association between having Asperger's and being insane. I don't think there necessarily is an association between those two.

I read a blog on the Psychology Today website about this case.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/radical-behaviorist/201004/john-odgren-guilty-aspergers-not-guilty
The author of the blog mentioned that all of these psychological issues taken together could cause a child with Asperger's to act out in a problematic way. But is this cluster of neurological and psychological issues considered insane? I don't know. Did Odgren know right from wrong? I am not sure.

I watched developments in this trial because I was unsure what I would have done if I had been on the jury. I had utter and complete sympathy for the Alenson family. Their son did nothing other than to go to the restroom that day. He didn't know his killer. If any of Odgren's family members felt he was a danger to himself or others, why was he attending a mainstream school?

The jury found Odgren guilty of 1st degree murder. He planned to kill somebody that day so it was premeditated. He is supposed to spend the rest of his life in jail, no possibility of parole. I have mixed feelings about that outcome. I feel good for the family James Alenson. They got the justice they deserved. Odgren should probably have been dealt with differently before this incident happened. If he were in a place that could have recognized his propensity toward violence, this may not have happened at all. Maybe he did not receive the assistance he needed to manage with the Aspergers, the bi-polar disorder and the ADD. If not, that is on his parents and the school. The whole situation is awful though. I am glad I was not on that jury!


There was a murder in the news this week involving two students at University of Virginia. So far George Huguely has admitted to kicking in the dorm room door and slamming the head of his former girlfriend Yeardley Love against the wall repeatedly. Love died that night and was found by her roommate in a pool of blood. What made an otherwise normal (seeming) college student, Huguely, fly into such a rage that he beat his ex girlfriend's head into the wall until she died? It is incomprehensible that nobody saw any warning signs in this boy's behavior. How can someone hold so much rage and that rage not be evident to anyone else that knows him?

In my not too distant memory I can recall the Virginia Tech massacre, the murder last year at Yale University and a fatal stabbing of a football player on the campus of University of Connecticut, where my son was a freshman. It is all so scary and we are so helpless to explain the reasons and the causes of this kind of behavior. As a parent, our children's safety is constantly on our minds.

I am not sure if there are any encouraging words to say on this topic. We need to be there for our children; we need to get them help if they have psychological difficulties, are bullied, or are troubled. In extreme cases, like that of John Odgren, some children should not be placed in a mainstream school setting where they could be a danger to the general population.

The teenage years through the early 20's are a time of raging hormones, changing personalities, and fluctuating brain chemistry. Young people straddle the line between good and bad at this time in their lives. They push the envelope and then retreat back. Luckily for us, the majority of them end up on the good side when their growing and changing starts to wane. There are always going to be a few that end up on the bad side and those are the ones we are all going to have to look out for.

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United Against Terror

The names just keep rolling in; the names of both American citizens and foreigners that want to kill us! The man that attempted to blow up a Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square this week is just another name on a long list including the underwear bomber of last year. It illustrates a point I make frequently. We are at war not with any country, but with an ideology. The modern (western) world is at war with the ancient world, its name being Islamic Extremism.

Lets face it, Islamic Extremists don't like the way we live, they don't like that women have rights, that we can wear whatever we want, say whatever we want, do whatever we want and our government and our religions will not take those rights away. They are jealous of our wealth and the wealth of opportunities we have. We have a standard of living light years over what they have. They force female children to marry old men, they stone people to death, they kill women for being raped, they don't want females to get educated or to show any skin whatsoever, so they force them to wrap themselves in head to toe coverings. If you didn't know better, you would think we were speaking about people in the Middle Ages or before. For Islamic Extremists, the advances of the modern world have passed them by. They have shunned any changes that would allow for human, and female rights. The men of radical Islam don't want to lose any degree of control over the young, the sick , the elderly and females.

As I see it, there is no way to convince these people that our way is the way to go. They don't want our way of life, they want us to adopt their philosophy and their beliefs. That will never happen. This leaves us at an impasse and leaves throngs of people that want to kill us and don't care if they have to kill themselves to do it.

How do we fight against an enemy that plays by absolutely no rules of human decency? They chop people's heads off and show it on Youtube. They use their own children as human shields. Do we treat them humanely and give them lawyers, trials, do we let them go? Do we torture them, waterboard them, interrogate them any way we can to get the information we need to save American lives? They put no value on any human life, not their own, not the lives of their children or family, not the lives of innocent bystanders. So how do we fight a "war" against that?

Unfortunately I think it is going to take more successful acts of terrorism on our own soil for people to really wake up and see that we have to fight dirty in order to survive. It is not pretty or politically correct to profile or to interrogate anyone that fits the profile of those Islamic Extremists trying to commit atrocities against us. It isn't pretty but it is vital to our national security for us to start doing it. It may not be humane to waterboard or roughly interrogate terrorist suspects trying to kill us. It is vital to our National safety that we do so if we need to. Nobody likes this but we can't be wimps here and let the terrorists win; More importantly WE DID NOT ASK FOR THIS CONFLICT. Muslim Extremists have been striking out at Western countries since before the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.

We are the United States of America; we are (or were) the most powerful nation on earth. Are we going to let a loose band of rogue terrorists, financially backed by our own oil revenues, plot and scheme to commit mass murder against us? I think NOT. We are going to have to get the stones to do whatever it takes to restore our position in this "New World Order." It pains me to see our government fawning over so many terrorist nations and letting them get away with things we would not have allowed them to 20 years ago. We do this because we depend on these places for the oil we need. We apologize for being who we are. What is that all about? Do we live such a terrible way? Are we morally bankrupt? Do we ignore the rest of the world? If that were the case, why are so many people trying to come here both legally and illegally to become citizens?

This latest instance of a foreigner (recently made citizen) trying to wreak havoc on our way of life illustrates in bold letters why we need a strict, and more importantly ENFORCED set of immigration policies. It turns out we granted citizenship to this Pakistani man about a year ago and this week he tried to tear our country apart yet again. How did HE become a citizen? We must not be too particular!

We need send troops to the southern and possibly northern borders of our country to ensure that terrorists are not just walking in; we need to profile at airports and refuse flights from countries that won't do the same. We need to keep tabs on all people that are here on visas from countries that have a large number of terrorists and terrorist training camps. They need to be booted out of here when their visas expire and they try to stay. If they do this, they should never be allowed into the US again. EVER. We need as close to a foolproof National ID system as we can get. And all citizens need to carry their national ID. We have biometric identification capabilities...retinal scans, fingerprints, voice prints. We need to use them.

Terrorism , Energy Dependence, and Illegal Immigration are linked together as security threats to our country; they go hand in hand in hand. We need to tie up all the loose ends of all of these factors and develop new engery sources that will make us independent of other countries for our energy needs. We need to do it sooner rather than later. Our country needs to stop partisan bickering and stop all the politically correct garbage that is going to get us all killed. I don't want it to take more World Trade Center and Pentagon like attacks for us to wake up to this fact.

In my utopia, American people wake up now and do whatever it takes to prevent any terrorist attacks from happening here again. We need to become what we once were...one Nation, under God, Indivisible!

The Oil Slick Tsunami

My Rant Du Jour is about the latest man made disaster, the oil slick tsunami that is slime-ing its way toward a battle weary New Orleans and Gulf Coast region. What is happening to solve that problem? Apparently not much!

This oil spewing catastrophe is a situation that British Petroleum (BP), and all other oil companies should and could have anticipated and had an action plan for. Oil rigs in US waters are not required to have remote shut off switches as they are in Norway and Brazil. Oil companies have pursuaded the US regulaors that these were unneccessary due to their enormous expense. These companies are drilling deep into the earth to remove resources (oil). If those resources get spilled into our other resource, water, there is a BIG PROBLEM. How is it that nobody now knows how to difinitively deal with this situation? In 2010, with all of our advanced technology, and with the advanced technology used on that oil rig to drill for oil, they cannot contain this spill; unbelievable! Apparently we did need the remote shut off switch capability afterall!

The Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig experienced a massive explosion on April 20, more than 13 days ago, and the resulting spillage of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico has continued since that moment. The extent of the damage that is being caused and will be caused is unknown at this time. The oil slick as of today is estimated at 100 square miles. The impact this will have on fishing, tourism, and wildlife in that Gulf region will be massive. Yet another disaster that the US will have to absorb financially.

Eleven crew members that worked on that rig are presumed to be dead after search efforts to find them were called off on April 23. The 115 crew members that survived took lifeboats to a supply boat sent by BP to rescue workers from the disaster.

So far, I have not heard or read a lot about speculation on the cause of the explosion. Maybe I just have not paid as much attention to that fact, I am not sure. Was it human error? Was it a mechanical failure? Was it something more sinister? I have not heard any connection to possible terrorism mentioned. Thinking about how we were all maniacs a couple of years ago when our gasoline cost over $4.00 a gallon, it strikes me that this rig could have been a possible terrorist target.

How better to get us ALL, than to hit us where it hurts and force us to pay a fortune again for gasoline. At $4.00 a gallon, it was painful at the gas pump, when paying for delivery charges, plane tickets, cruise tickets, limos, taxis, truck transportation of all goods and services. It seriously hurts our economy when gasoline is $4.00 a gallon.

Funny things happen though when gas prices skyrocket upward. We all become more selective with our driving habits...do we really NEED to go to the mall 1/2 hour away....can we carpool for soccer.....should we ditch the SUV and get a Prius.......many of these ideas occurred to us a couple of summers ago when gas was so costly. Priuses were impossible to get...there were waiting lists and people willing to pay more than sticker price for them. More people car pooled or avioded unneccessary road trips, plane trips, cruises, etc. People would pull up to the gas pump in disgust and only fill their tanks half way. For my car, 1/2 way at $4.00 a gallon cost me $40.00!! Believe me, it does make you think twice about tooling around town in your car for the fun of it!

One other aspect of this horrible situation that we are probably all thinking about is the prospect of the US opening up further areas around our coastlines for oil drilling. At the moment it does not sound like a good idea to expand our drilling program when we can't seem to recover from the problems of this drilling disaster. Sara Palin's mantra "Drill Baby Drill" seems pretty stupid at the moment. We do have short memories however and probably as soon as we clean up from this mess, the plan to expand our own drilling will resume.

We, as a country, need to be far less dependent on foreign oil. It is a political hot potato for us to have to depend on our arch enemies for the oil to run our cars, businesses, and homes. Our dependence on middle eastern countries for oil makes us have to look the other way when they blatantly violate basic tenents of human rights, and makes us weak in their eyes as well.

Instead of focusing most of our brain power on finding new domestic oil sources for the next 100 years, we need to take that down a notch and focus on newer cleaner energy sources that can be sustained indefinitely. I am not saying windmills will power us into 2100 by themselves. But lets face it, if a windmill breaks down or even breaks off and falls down, we are not going to have any natural disaster occur as a result of that failure. Neither are we going to have a disaster if a solar panel stops working or breaks down. We will just be missing the power they usually provide.

Finding alternative, CLEAN energy could be the next big thing and could be a huge boost to our economy. At this point in time, we really need a NEXT BIG THING. There would be countless jobs created, new industries would pop up, new software to be developed, new factories to produce whatever carries and dispenses that new energy. Granted, oil industry employees would suffer if a newer cleaner source of energy is found and is proven to be reliable and reasonably priced. There is no reason though that BP, Exxon Mobil, or the like can't be the ones to discover and bring to us this new energy source. They don't have to become obsolete if they don't want to.

Maybe my thinking is simplistic and there is much more involved here but it seems to me that this oil rig disaster is screaming out: "Enough is enough " and "Find a better way" to us. We need to hear that message and get serious about it.

If we continue to drill for oil, add new drilling locations, and still have to contend with pirates hijacking cargo ships carrying oil, drill rigs breaking down, ships leaking oil into the water, none of this is going to get better and it may get a lot worse. Gas could go to $10.00 a gallon and may be all over our beaches, our birds, and leave us unable to fish anywhere. We do need to find a better way and BP and the US government need to clean up the mess before it is too late for the Gulf region to recover.