good morning,love the new photo Redd

you have a great smile,and now we can all SMILE a LOT motre…”g”

Thank you for this post Christy. I have friends and family who are veterans.

It’s only us dems that feel the shame, I’m afraid. Maybe now we can fix it.

the health care solution for veterans is the same one for all of us – single payer universal coverage.

the most important special responsibility we have to those who serve in the armed forces is to never ever send them to unnecessary, stupid and immoral wars.

It’s only us dems that feel the shame

that’s just not so.

Who else then? I don’t see anyone else.

Shame on ALL of us?

What are ALL of us supposed to do about this? We’ve raised money. We’ve gone on local radio to draw attention. I called Walter Reed personally to volunteer in DC. I offered to volunteer at local VA and they didn’t seem to want the help. I offered financial support to veteran’s groups.

Honestly, I don’t know what to do. Feeling shame doesn’t seem like the next logical step. Is that really meaningful? Fact is, the people who can do something about it probably won’t and the rest of us are powerless.

Thanks Christy.

digg

i know personally know people who are republicans, greens, apolitical and anarchists – who all feel the shame of what our vets have had to endure.

instead of “shame”, does “empathy” work for you?

Well, you may want to take it a litle less personal. otoh, until we as a society own the problem it can’t be fixed. This admin has bancrupt the country for starters.

This morning we are reading of the new administration of Barak Obama and how it is caving already on many of the issues they promised to address. Ignoring the spying, keeping the immunity etc. We should not be supprized at their failure on this critical issue. I hate the wars but support the troops and want to see each of them get every bit of medical and psychological care that they need.

I am begining to think that we may need to start the impeach Obama movement even before he gets through his first 100 days. This may well be the signal issue that tips the party over and begins the throw the rascals out movement in the Party.

I fervently hope that I am wrong, but I am a lot less optimistic now.

Last spring Phoenix had what is called a “stand down” where they set up an area to help the homeless Vets, they had portable showers, Dentists and Doctors volunteered, there were volunteers to sign Vets up for services and help them into programs. The Veterans for Peace and other groups do this yearly.

This is what has to be done when the so called dreaded government doesn’t do it’s job.

Fair enough. I hope they have voices and votes when it counts. Too many people wring their hands and wail. We are on the right track now. Finally. No offense to those on the fringes.

Oh, ye of little faith.
C’monnnnnnnnnnnn. Seems a little pre-emptive to me.
Find the joy.

Okay, back from taking the FIL over to his dialysis. Whew — crazy morning here. And now, for my first cuppa coffee…

The joy would be an announcement that our vets are high on the transition team agenda. So far the bankers extra 140 billion has drawn thunderous silence. What could getting that money back and putting it into the VA system do?

Hugs, hon — and lotsa prayers headed your way…

Ya know, I disagreed with him on both issues at the time. I think/believe that he knows better. I have to trust him. How about you?

please note the only source for his reticence on “spying” and “immunity” is WSJ

Mornin’ All

No I dont trust anyone in politics who says trust me but ignore what I actually do or fail to do. This fellow works for us. He is not the new father figure, he is the hired gun we want to clean up the mess.

Here’s a small clue on reading the pre-administration tea leaves: if the person dropping the hints is doing so anonymously rather than doing it on the record, it’s not likely a firm position — but more of a wishful “this is the spin I’m pushing” effort by the speaker. Unless you see it come flying out of someone’s mouth on the record, definitively, take anything you read with a vast grain of salt.

Because right now, a lot of the issue kabuki is people trying to position the issues to make their own particular skillset look indispensable in the hiring frenzy going into cabinet and upper-level positions. It’s good to keep that in mind no matter who is doing the talking…or who from the Bush end of things is trying to do legacy rehab.

Oh, and fergawdsake, always keep in mind the agenda of the writer in question or the news source as well. The WSJ? Oh, hello…

Okay. I don’t care for politicians either. You are right to be skeptical. My prediction is that you will be lucky enough to be pleasantly surprised over the years.

Yes, that was a rhetorical flourish that, had I had the luxury of a second pass at copy-edit this morning I would likely have removed. But as I was chasing down my five year old to get her sweatpants on so we could run her granddad over to the hospital for dialysis while I was finishing this piece…sans coffee, I might add…I didn’t get that chance.

And it wasn’t intended just for you, so fear not. It was a general “jeebus, we have GOT to do better than this” sort of sigh.

You ask a good question. But, realistically, the pockets are going to take care of each other first. Not good. Not moral.
It has taken us a very long time to get here and will take a long time before it’s all fixed.
I just hope we can keep our morale up through the journey, which is why I took offense to the impeachment talk.

South fades as political force. Would be good if true.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11…..ref=slogin

Tuesday is my peace vigil night . I’ll be there but pondering what my sign should read.
Along with the billion dollars gone from our county for George’s grand adventure we’re missing a couple of good kids. The shame hangs so heavy on my heart for what this country has become.

Yeah, the SOB has had an entire week as President elect and a number of rumors look like he might adopt something opposed to my expert opinion. Contact Bob Barr about ways and means of starting impeachment proceedings before inauguration.

Good Morning Christy
You drive before coffee?
But, the good news is you weren’t pre-empted this morning by a foul-mouthed cable talking head. *g*

We have all been on this journey for a long time. Perhaps thats why it is so hard to see our new hire make such an apparant gaf at his first presentation on how he will begin on the agenda. We didnt hire him to move the furniture around. His only job is to clean the Agean stables not bribe the old guard.

Didn’t have a choice this morning. *g* They had to switch his appointment to an earlier one. Just one of those days here, I’m afraid…although the world is infinitely safer if I can have coffee before I do anything else. *g*

WJ is doing a callers’ segment on what Rs should do next. Hoot & a half. Current R caller sez turn to god.

Shouldn’t you actually let him get into office and actually DO something before you start believing the doom and gloom spin on what he may or may not actually do? This is like the pre-Libby-indictment spin….there is a reason people throw out all this BS and see what sticks to the wall, and it’s usually tied into their own personal interests and not those of any one person outside themselves.

Including the journalists who report on it. Check the sources, check the authors, check the details and the anonymity…and then take everything with a huge grain of salt. Always.

Christy – my dad did dialysis for two years – and when they call you, you’ve gotta go because you may not be able to get an appointment for a while if you do not. This is another real huge problem – my father had to drive to Syracuse three times a week for his because there was no dialysis facility nearby and none that had any open spots. I’ve heard of people having to drive to Albany from Oneonta for dialysis because of that. There are just not enough dialysis units.

That is good advice. Even then there are lots of nuances to the stuff that happens in DC.

Perhaps you are right, and I fervently hope so. We have such great hopes for the future, it is hard to see weakness like the Lieberman support even before he gets into office.

Oh Christy. It does sound hectic there. Here’s a thought, though. You are at a place in your life wherein you are sandwiched between your fil’s health issues and the exuberance of your young peanut. A reminder of what life is. I bet this situation makes you all the more aware of how fragile and wonderful life is. Peace to you this day.

Exactly — it’s a sort of drop everything and run thing. And we’ve had to do it a lot lately. It’s been an adjustment having the new addition in the family — not that we’d do anything differently, he’s family and we love him dearly — but it’s wreaked havoc on my writing and research time because something has to give, and it can’t be dialysis or The Peanut. No more than any other person caring for an elderly relative has to deal with., but it’s certainly exhausting.

If anyone has advice on how you’ve dealt with it in your families, I’d love to hear it.

I’ve learned that you never, ever take anything anyone says inside the Beltway at face value. Ever. (And how sad is that?!?)

That’s true — it does bring that home in countless ways on a daily basis. And that has enormous value.

It’s just politics. Until a person understands the first rule they don’t get it.

Good morning, all-
demi has it right. This will be an incremental process, and a long-term one as well. The analogy I use is this: we have been in a war for the country, and we’ve been losing. We have finally won a great victory, and stopped the invader…but he is still occupying all that land behind him. Now the real battle begins, to take back the nation…there will be many battles, setbacks, and reversals, and it will take time. Some of us may not live to see it. All the more reason to fight harder. The idea that we should decapitate our own command structure for not being able to just win the war overnight is flawed, at best.

btw, if you missed the Newshour segment on the enormous increase in veterans’ suicides, it’s worth a watch. They have extended interviews online with the head of the VA, the head of VA mental health services and a vets group advocate that are really interesting, especially when you contrast the level of detail and willingness to talk at length about the issue among the various interviewees.

Worth some time to watch if you have it today.

Also, the YouTube above is the VA commercial put out in the last 3 weeks to cope with the rapid rise in the number of vet suicides they’ve seen even in the last year, despite the addition of several thousand mental health providers. I keep asking myself why this wasn’t considered well before deployment, as it should have been — but we’re in woulda, shoulda., coulda land at this point. Now the huge question is what to do that makes things better instead of worse. With the increases in PTSD compounded by multiple deployments and the massive head trauma injuries and survival rate that have not yet begun to be tallied? We have got to get our asses in gear on these issues…

One person you need to remember though is to also take care of Christy

Oh, and remember that asanine Bill O’Reilly trumped up hoo haw about homeless vets? Well, Bill O’Reilly can kiss my ass in Macy’s window:

– Homeless vet gets help after 15 years.
– Iraq and Afghan vets joining homeless populations.
– one in four homeless people are veterans.

My two cents here. With my dad – especially when he could not drive anymore but still needed to go, one of the true blessings is that he had friends who would drive him, take a book, sit with him during dialysis and bring him home. This got especially wonderful when the unit in Syracuse would take his time for an ‘emergency’ and reassign him to a time like 9 at night, which would mean, as you know, that his driver would be bringing him home after midnight. Families need to understand that a) they can’t do it all themselves and b) that there are people out there who will help if you ask. When I was caring for my mom with dementia, I had one lady who is definitely a candidate for sainthood, who ran all my errands, picked up Rxs, drove my mom and the health care aide to rehab(early on when she could still do it). Another couple picked up groceries for me. People from your community need to know that you guys need help.

I have been intermittently emotional ever since the election. Tearing at the Boeing commercial for Veteran’s Day, the Obama’s arriving at the White House yesterday, and other stuff. We may all be a little emotionally exhausted.
But, we’re not screaming at each other here. Talking it out and for that I’m grateful.
((Rond))

I really suck at trying to remember that – so thanks for the reminder. I tend to always put myself last on my “to do” list. *g*

We had some wonderful friends of theirs who were doing that where they lived in AZ before my MIL passed away, since we obviously couldn’t fly out and drive them from WV. Once she passed away and he moved in here, though, his friends are all in AZ.

We are lucky in that the center is only a 10 minute drive — so I can drop him off, and they have teevees for football and talk shows and such while the treatment is done — and then I pick him up 4 hours later. So that works well as far as that goes. It’s the variability that is a bit exhausting, because you never know when you’ll have to drop everything and go with a time change. I guess you eventually just adjust to having no real set schedule, I suppose.

Thank you my dear…..

Forgot to tell you that I made some avgolemano soup out of that cookbook you brought me back from Greece the other day. Boy, was it good! I’ve been informed by the men of the house that I am welcome to make it frequently. *g*

Well shame on us for not pressing our congresscritters and the powers that be to alleviate the conditions that put the armed services under enormous mental strain. This reminds of a Hartford Courant article from years ago. It seems the government is pushing the envelope as far as servicemen and women are concerned. How many times can a person who is already PTSD be sent into a warzone before cracking? How many times can a person who is already PTSD be sent abroad for action knowing the world and many in the US do not sanction what is going on in Iraq? It seems the only answer is to bring these men and women home, and beef up mental health services and other kind of support, because depression/suicide is not a “choice” as dimwit in the commercial puts it. It’s part of illness. It’s a serious mental quagmire that doesn’t get better when there are so many stressing factors.

I didn’t want to take over the thread of such an important issue as our Veterans.

So glad you are enjoying the cookbook….. I wish I had found one while in France but did not take the time to find one…..

Love soups. Recipe? I’ve made a lot of really good ones (in my new freezer in single serving containers) from The New Basics.

Not knowing what your financial situation is, I’ll throw this suggestion out. Is it at all possible to get a mother’s helper in to assist you a few afternoons a week? A student perhaps? It would go a long ways toward your mental and physical well being.

I have a couple of fantastic ones that deal with some good french cooking — both by Martha Rose Schulman. I’m not certain they are in print any longer — I found mine at a used book store years ago. But they are “Mediterranean Light” and “Provencal Light” — with an emphasis on fresh veggies and fruits and healthy olive oil and such. The recipes are amazingly tasty, full of garlic (so be forewarned) and just taste of sunshine in the middle of a dreary winter day.

If you can find a copy of either, they are well worth the reading, just for the travel remembrances among the recipes alone.

Christy, Just give your self more time to adapt to the changes. Your fil has only been with you a few weeks and since that time you have accomplished a lot. I commend you!

Chris in Paris from Americablog had this website and I have been using it
Lets cook French

Morning Christy,
Happy Veteran’s Day to all the Vets.

Don’t forget Lioness on PBS the 13th, about women in combat, and the short shrift they get.

When I lived in SD I was about 4 blocks from the VA hospital where I rcvd. my medical care. Many of my neighbors and friends worked there and were for the most part very dedicated. Many others were veterans. Medical care there was excellent but those with PTSD were not receiving the care they should have been. It was not understood and the solution was to push pills. The rise in awareness of this is a good thing but catching up is taking to long. I have not been to a VA facility in several years but I perceive that service at the VA facilities has deteriorated under GWB just like FEMA and everything else for the common good.

Jane’s up with
Schumer and Durbin Want Lieberman Stripped of Homeland Security Chair

Nice post Christy, very well written! I am a conservative and I couldn’t agree with you more. Another thing you can add to this is the actual pay service men/women get while in….it is near poverty especially if you are ranked under E-4. This should be doubled in my humble opinion.

Pray for everyone in the armed forces today, and thank them if you see them. It really does make all the difference.

We have to face the fact that some of these men and women are so damaged by war, by what Cheney wrought, that the one hour allotted each month (the norm in psychiatry these days), plus the financial stress and other factors makes it very hard to alleviate the situation. A lot of persons who have their minds set on suicide do not succeed with even the most intensive treatment. Then there is the stigma that is attached to mental illness. There are those out there, who do not want to be perceived as “weak”. Our society does a good job at lauding heroes, very little good at make other people walk in other people’s shoes when it comes to sickness. Mental illness is still considered “shameful” to a lot of people, PTSD or not.

that’s one of the major issues covered in Lioness, the PTSD and no treatment

Happy Veteran’s Day mike

Chicken Soup With Egg And Lemon (Kotossoupa Avgolemono)

1 chicken
1 c. rice
1 whole onion
Salt and pepper to taste
Egg and Lemon Sauce (recipe follows)

Put chicken in a pot and cover with water. As soon as it begins to boil, skim off foam and add onion, salt and pepper. When chicken is done, remove from pot along with onion. (I strained the broth through a sieve for clarity here.) Add rice to broth and let it cook. When rice is done, prepare egg and lemon sauce and serve soup hot. NOTE: I shredded a little of the chicken into a tiny dice and added to the soup as well before serving. And reserved the rest of the chicken for a casserole the next day.

Egg and Lemon Sauce
1 to 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 eggs
Juice of one lemon (use fresh, it makes a huge difference)
A little flour
Mix flour with lemon juice — should be a paste (NOTE: I used a couple of Tbsps.). Beat eggs in bowl with flour and lemon juice. Add small amount of broth, little by little, beating continually, about 1/2 to 3/4 cup. Pour egg and leomon sauce into rest of broth and stir until well combine with no lumps — do so slowly. Always remove pot from heat when you do this, otherwise your egg may curdle. Pour the sauce into a pot of soup or other dish and stir.

Their budgets are wholly inadequate to deal with the needs of the folks who come in for services at this point. We have some wonderful folks who work at our local VA center, who really care about their job and their patients, but they barely have the ability to care for them with the resources they have from their tiny budgets.

I shudder to think of what deterioration in services.

Even with the best and most caring staff, it is so hard to treat. Often there are not enough staff too.

My FIL served in the Navy in WWI, driving boats into the beach at Tarawa and elsewhere — you name a hideous battle in the Pacific, and he was likely in it, truly. And then he re-upped for Korea because they needed his experience — he was a Marine at Chosin, among other really dismal places. Survived it all, with any number of wounds for which he’s now paying the price at the ripe old age of 83.

He doesn’t talk much about his service, as most vets don’t. But they all deserve better that what they are getting at the moment.

Oh pills are still considered a good thing, maybe even more so. I blame the BigPharma, Insurance, our decrepit health care system for relying heavily on pills, leaning heavily on doctors, so that all patients get is an occasional visit. To my mind, pills are a cheap substitute for any real psychiatric treatment, especially for patients who are in acute stages.

Under Clinton many advances were made in VA healthcare. Some of which can serve as a model for all healthcare. All our patient medical records were completely computerized. Everything was input directly. Nurses and doctors initially grumbled but came to admire it.

thanks christy–i saw it, worth a look.

reminded me of a segment that moved me beyond belief.from march, 2006
a vietnam vet wrote a poem about the ‘honor roll’ at the end of the lehrer newshour. the link has his short background statement and the poem.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb….._poem.html

The Returning Dead

Each night I make a drink and wait for them
They have become the day’s concluding news,
Installments from a world without anthems
Or children, unfocusing eyes

A question that repeatedly rejects
My easy terms. They are ones who believed
And acted in the narrow and select
Ways handed them, while ordinary lives

Ran on without interruption
Or bad pictures, as though nothing had changed
Change is the one unanswerable question
Of these faces. The world can rearrange

Itself repeatedly, but these remain
The same, silent in everything they lack;
That’s what they’ve come to, in places with names
Like Afghanistan, Iraq,

And this is the way it happens: the words
Are old – mother, father, home – and will catch
Surrounding currents in the slow absurd
Descending will of any river etched

Out of a landscape history refines
To myth. The TV blanks between
Segments, but every static face defines
Itself, holds stubbornly its private scene…

Fixed, publicly, as we are led
Back to that little negative whose lack
Is each of us, staring the staring dead,
Leaning, sometimes like grief itself; then straightening back.

Treatment for PTSD needs to start before anyone is deployed.

I will remember him in my prayers tonight, thanks for sharing. He is definitely the definition of a true American hero!!

Sounds like you could be right. I can imagine a lot of men and women not treating it seriously. It could be like the illness that hits a person, like diabetes that hits a person before they even realize it.

forgot to say, watch the streaming video for this if you are able, his voice said it all.

Morning Christy and Dawgs.

Mixed messages all over. This waiting for the 20’s of January ‘09 is a bear, huh?!
If memory serves, I was thoroughly blasted from left field when I dared, yes DARED, to express some faith in the Obama team’s means and motivations before the election. Oh the abject horror that struck in some faint-hearted concern trolls!

The shock of those encounters drove me to do something outright silly. I went out on Nov. 5 and bought meself a fresh copy of the WSJ and took it home proudly, with plans to gloat over their shock and awed miseries.

But then, Dang. T’aint funny when the moneyed few take their solace in bumping up their skim-scam bailout allowances by billions and bbbillions. How’d they do dat?! Where are cheener’s hands? If not behind his’n back & in cuffs, why not?!

But I digress. Even smart-a$”es can be dump-belles. I mean, look at the gawdlees-smearin’ grifter ticket. I thot such like were usually smart enuf to duck outta the spotlight in a jiffy after looting the booty. Poor saurah keeps runnin’ in circles muttering somethin’ about “come ‘n git it, suckers… whut unnerwear? – lost it… so’s yer old man… did NAUGHT!… 2012pffftghbbblblarggggh…” I fergit. Did the tigers in that old kiddy book lose their stripes first? or did they just turn into lard straight-away?

While we’re waitin’ for some sense to kick in, someone before the election had an idee here ’bouts and it was a goodun’. I’d feel safer if they’d go poke that road-kill shill on her head with a stick. I think it’s still movin’.

For the time being, I am sustained by guarded optimism. Why? I haven’t a clue, except it has something to do with real honest-to-goodness smart, dedicated, caring people taking over in January. If they want to keep liarman around to perform as a decent senator, alternatively as a pinata, that’s o.k. with me. I’ve even got a good stout stick over in the corner there, if they need to borrow it.

Nice immage and real folksy. Lieberman is worse than a Republican he is a lieing sack of S**t. Never investigated anything, lied about his election, lied to Obama about not attacking him, why would anyone with half a brain want him within ‘hollering distance’ of the Democrats?

Spokane61/Adie, not that what you wrote even applies to this article Christy wrote, but you seem to hate Lieberman because he stood for a single issue that he truly believed in. He didn’t back down even when he was being attacked ruthlessly from those within his own party. He still votes with Democrats, dare I say 90% of the time (bet McCain is sorry he said that now), but you are still willing to burn him at the stake for a single issue. You are obviously one of the ‘open-minded’ liberals I hear so much about, why don’t you practice that by 1) forgiving a guy that has been incredibly faithful to the democrats, and 2) respect the content of this article/blog for what it is and don’t post this negative trash. Grow up!

I don’t think I’ve ever been angrier and more outraged then watching the sad show this morning of Cheney laying the wreath at Arlington Cemetery and then piously spouting bullshit about the brave and patriotic soldiers who are fighting in Iraq and elswhere.

CHENEY IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS MESS IN IRAQ…and all the death, dishonor and dismemberment of our soldiers and the people of Iraq!

This evil son of a bitch should be hiding his face in shame, and instead we have his presence at this event shoved in the faces of all Americans!

You got that right. I had a very bad infection about 2 weeks ago, tried to get an appointment at my local VA hospital-very very underfunded, I damn near died after surgery in April of 08, spent 14 days in a catholic hospital recovering(tho the VA and I are fighting about paying me back for the hospital bills incurred)-to my point. Called for urgent apt-they had already done the surgery a couple of months earlier and declared that the entire infection was gone(it wasn’t)-in late Oct, the earliest apt that I could get was for the 28th of Nov. Once more I wound up spending my dime and went to a civilian clinic where they operated within the hour of my arriving and in fact dug out the cause of the infection-which the VA Dr(an intern) had missed. The VA is massivly underfunded. While I have been using the VA medical service since 1980,(in the USArmy 1968-1980) it was actually worse under RR, became somewhat better under GHWB got better under WJC and then took a big nosedive under GWB. Let us hope that we actually take the VA off budget and finally get a stable budget that we can count on. On the other hand, because I am rated 100% disabled, my wife can also use the VA for medical treatment, besides which she is also enrolled in CHAMPUS(VA) so she can use outside specialists and get meds that are not in the VA formulary. It is not only the current war patients that the VA needs to help, there are plenty of Vietnam PTSD vets along with Korean and WWII vets. The WWII and Korean War vets are starting to die or get alzheimers and I will say that the VA is working on this, they changed a VA hospital that is about 60 miles from where I live into pretty much-except for outpatient services-a nursing home for vets, even tho they have to send them to our hosp for surgery. The current situation is better than being poked in the eye with a sharp stick, but not by much