Hootin’ Anni’s

edition #60

The Domino Effect [through the eyes of a pessimist]

1] Oil by the barrel sets a new high daily!
2] Fuel – Gasoline prices skyrocket!
3] Transporting goods -trains, trucks, planes, buses [city, schools, and national tour buses] – feel the crunch and..
4] Raise prices on everything, including the 1st piece of luggage for most airline traffic.
5] In turn, we get the brunt of it as consumers! While the CEOs see a 300% profit!
6] We are promised a tax rebate of $600 per individual to boost the economy!
7] To spend for fun and frivolously? I think not…
8] I can’t wait to see how this all ends; if ever -probably not in my lifetime.
9] I see an advertisement- “Wanna Sell your S U V? Good luck!!” And laugh at the humor but know it’s darn well true to life!
10] Fuel costs, food staples, electricity, propane, you name it…rises to record levels.
11] You can’t make your house payments…just the rich can sell/buy! Banks don’t wanna loan out anything.
12] Eventually no vacations–no filled hotels [I predict some will go belly-up this tourist season], no flight plans, no trips, nada!! For many. Others will just chalk it up to inflation and not care. Walking and/or biking looks like a last ditch effort.
13] And yet our dear George says the economy will level out with the rebates. I want to see Congress fight back harder; it’s dubious tho to see anything coming forth to help the economy/citizens…

More on the ‘domino effect’ -The COLA won’t budge! In fact, if we’re all lucky we’ll get a 2% adjustment while the cost of living goes up 6% or more!! GO FIGURE!! Crime will rise, people are reported syphoning gas out of cars while others work to PAY for it. Food is stolen, purses/wallets are snatched and women/men are killed for $5.00 – people are in dire straits…we’re all in this together, and we sit by —

What’s wrong with this picture?
[I know, I know --it only goes up to 2007..hehehehe! I guess for 2008, it's too early to say? Who knows.]

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NOW—

–through the eyes of an optimist:

A famous quote from the movie, “Network” [circa 1976]—

Howard Beale: I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV’s while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad.
Howard Beale: [shouting] You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!’ So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,
[shouting]
Howard Beale: ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’ I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:
Howard Beale: [screaming at the top of his lungs] “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”

Are the oil company CEOs gonna listen to us?

I refused to take this:

I must ‘fess up. I respect and acknowledge that medical doctors [general practitioners in this case] have a higher education than I. But in some cases, their knowledge and know how when it comes to working with an individual [this case, me, the stubborn Irish lass!] doesn’t always sit well. Sometimes I feel doctor’s demeanor is more or less what I call ‘educated dummy’. And I know a lot of physicians personally, I have worked with them in the medical field. I’m not calling them dummies, I’m just thinking in the terms of their education and knowledge of the field in which they earned their degree, but still don’t know much on a personal level and how to work with a patient on a one to one basis…as an individual, instead of a meal ticket. Who else knows my body more than I? No one.

You see, three months ago I had to go in for my quarterly blood work. My cholesterol level was high. What she calls “too high” and that I’m “considered high risk” when it comes to health of the heart. Okay, yes, I smoke. She tried to bait me into taking a medication for that, to get me to stop. Tobacco is technically an herb…as is licorice candy and tea and coffee. Is coffee consumption a killer too? Probably, if you drink too much of it. Thing is, that shows me –again, stubborn –that shows me that I’d be taking another drug to counteract with another drug! And there is always a large potential of side effects of which I’m totally fearing because of what happened to me before with drugs.

While having the heart problems this past twelve years, the one particular med just up and decided to quit working for me. Then, the cardiologist put me on a new med. That one was lethal. I had tons of side effects and a larger potential of dying from the side effects [at one point I thought I was a goner!] than the SVT I experienced off and on for the dozen years! Three out of three cardiologists said that SVT is not life-threatening, but still needed to be controlled. TWO of them suggested the ablation. While the 3rd one…which I’d been seeing on a regular basis here in Texas, thought I’d be ‘cured’ with medication instead.

WRONG!! I was in the E R from nightmarish reactions to his ‘cure all’ drug. Lethal, I’ll tell you. Lethal.

I had the ablation. I, in fact, threatened to do a referral myself to get a specialist. Well, to keep a long story getting much longer, I don’t see HIM any more. But I still continue to see my primary care physician. One thing…I refused to take any more drugs. I said no to Zocor! Period!

She gave me three months to lower my high cholesterol. [of course little did she know that I would still refuse even after the three months time!] But I changed my diet. I went from a high meat diet –fatty foods, to nearly a total vegan diet. I will eat fish or a small piece of chicken about once a week. [okay, I did have a steak and shrimp for our 40th anniversary] That’s all. From there, it’s vegetarian all the way.

Friday, had my blood test. Drs. office calls and says the blood work results were back and the cholesterol dropped by 20 and the LDL [bad cholesterol was better than perfect!] For me personally, I had no doubt in my mind it’d work! And I said: “See, y’all don’t know everything!”

And to make another statement, smoking may be harmful, yes I’m sure. But so are prescribed drugs, or alcohol consumption, getting into your car and driving the streets, or even getting out of bed or a slippery shower.

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Again, I’m probably blabbing away, but like Sandy said on HER blog, “It’s my blog”…I like her thinking!