We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

When I feel like I am absolutely too rebellious for my own good, this is what I read. When I don’t act like a sheeple and make things difficult because I would rather be difficult than easy, I’m reminded that my forefathers were exactly like me. I don’t know when we as Americans went from fighters going against all reason and logic to simply nice people who do what the government says is quite a change.

I remember in US History when they talked about how Britain wasn’t so bad. How it wasn’t all that unreasonable for us to pay taxes to Britain simply because them wanting us to pay for the defense we needed from the French and some Native American’s was the least we could do. However the Patriots had something that Loyalists didn’t and that was passion. Even though it wasn’t completely logical, the Patriots convinced and fought their way to their own government, freeing themselves from Britain and creating our government. Through rebellion and beautifully crafted words people have died to defend what was fought for and created. I guess in school that was what stood out to me the most and perhaps explains why I am the way I am. I do not rebel against everything the government does, I don’t rebel for the sake of rebelling, but when I feel like my rights are in any way in danger I turn into an angry, passionate Patriot because America is in my blood and has been since its founding.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “They who can give up essential liberty for temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety.“

The media has blown up with stories about TSA employees and the TSA over stepping their boundaries. The TSA has been implementing more invasive methods over the past 4 years, testing it on their employees to see if they can get away with it. You can read plenty of stories; here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here… (yes, each one of these links go to a different place) oh and here (because people assume TSA employees are not human for some reason and thus not susceptible to human issues).

Our government is not there to violate us. It is here to represent us. We have a strict set of definitions in place and pat downs/body scans (digital strip search) violate our 4th amendment rights. In addition to that the body scanners are a gross invasion of privacy. In the digital age — it is virtually impossible to get rid of this information. Once it is stored in a database  chances are in some way it has been replicated — and this has been proven to be true based on the leaks of body scanner images and stories of employees abusing these said nude shots.

When I have to choose between a violation of my health, privacy, and rights by using a body scanner or a legal form of sexual assault there needs to be better options in place. For instance, look at Israel. They haven’t had an incident since 2002 and their methods are far less invasive.

So what should I do? Not fly like senators (our representatives, go figure) have suggested? If I want to go to Europe I should find an alternative method that doesn’t involve body gropage? So either I accept the way it is because the government has told me to do so or that is it. I just shouldn’t fly.

This is intolerable. The fact that this isn’t even more of an outrage is astounding. Terrorists already won. They succeeded in striking “terror” into our hearts and changing our values and rights. We’re doing what we’re told like good sheeples and no one wants to fight back because that’s not the “nice” thing to do. It’s inconvenient to us evidently. Hijacking of flights occurs less often than a shark attack, its chances of happening are negligible. Even with these pat down methods, there is no way to detect whether or not something is inside the body — so is the next step to be a cavity search? Where does it stop?

The thing about rights is if you let them take blows, it becomes significantly harder to avoid the next blow.

That’s why I urge you to write to the President, your Senators, your Congressmen. Do something because that’s what being an American is supposed to be about.

I’ve been an asthmatic my entire life, not just a regular one, a bad one. So I’ve spent about half of my life in doctors offices and hospitals and from all my experiences I’ve come to the conclusion that most doctors are incompetent and the hospitals they are a part of are worse.

Reason 1: Billing.
Case: Their billing is awful. So awful, it makes you depressed and makes you want to /wrist, but if you /wrist, you’d end up there again and potentially with more bills so it’s not a valid alternative. Why is it — that when I go to ONE appointment on lets say 9-21-2010 I get 4 different bills? Why do I not just get ONE bill in an easy consolidated form showing what my insurance paid and what I have due? How is it that out at least one of these four bills has to get lost in the mail and I’ll get a call going, “Why havent you paid your bill?” where you will then have a lengthy dialogue about how you never received the bill, a person on the other end of the line going, “You know, if you can’t pay it, we can work something out…” and you getting angry because it was never an issue of you being ABLE to pay it, but merely that you never got the bill and now you’re mad because they are trying to say you’re the incompetent one. This is assuming you get a call at all and don’t just happen to be using freecreditreport.com and notice that you have some mysterious medical collections that you don’t even remember even seeing.

Hey, guess what Hospitals, I’ve been going to you my entire life and YOU ALL have this problem. I’d also like you to know that it’s SO DAMN BAD that my Mom who has gone to court MANY times over bills she never received has WON every single time. Even the judicial system knows what fuck ups you are. She started saving her bills religiously  because she noticed on bills how you would bill her for the exact same thing multiple times. You greedy bastards.

Pro Tip: 1 BILL, from 1 SOURCE. I’m tired of going to a hospital and then receiving a bill from “Notthehospitalyouwenttoo” here where you’re like, “Hm, how did these people get my information and I never saw them?” This makes me not trust hospitals.

Reason 2: They will attempt to run 20,000 different tests on you even if you know what is wrong with you.
Case: I had been a chronic asthmatic for years. At the age of 12, I had a really bad attack from long-term exposure to a cat and had to be whisked off to the emergency room. This hospital could not treat me due to the severity of the attack and I was whisked off to a speciality hospital for children known as “Riley’s Hospital for Children” in Indianapolis, IN by ambulance. Once there, a particularly incompetent doctor when faced with my severe breathing, previous admittance to the other hospital FOR ASTHMA,  and adamant parent that it was an asthma attack, she said I needed a very painful procedure called a spinal tap and wanted to review my injuries from a go-kart accident I had had two months prior that involved something below the waist down and nothing to do with my lungs. They also insisted on during the peak of my attack, that a catscan was necessary. I was passing in and out of consciousness and a catscan was indeed what my dying lungs needed. Not to be kept still and relaxed, nope, I needed to be carted around away from life saving paddles. Then, emergency room aside, when I finally made it up to ICU they decided that every test in the world needed to be run on me — from health tests relating to my diet to a sweat test of sorts. A phrase I heard multiple times? “It’s okay, she has double insurance.”

Reason 3:  Something painful must occur.
Case: I swear, I could walk in there feeling healthy as an ox and for some reason I will have some form of torture and/or pain inflicted upon me.

Doctor: “How are you feeling today?”
Me: “GREAT! This is the first time I’ve felt this good in awhile. Those medicines are really working.”
Doctor: “Mmmk. Well we’re going to need to run some blood tests, I’m going to need you to do some additional PFTs, and I’m going to insert this abnormally large needle into your ass because I’m feelin’ bored today.”

I always walk out with a shot it seems. I could go in there for medicine refills and walk away with bandages.

Reason 4: A lot of doctors are douchebags.
Case: Now, I wont claim to be the easiest patient. There is only one doctor in my life I’ve even remotely liked and that’s because he was the only one that sat down next to me and asked me what was going on. I mean literally sat down and listened. However, that’s one of… hundreds. In fact, I’ve had a doctor walk in there and literally say, “I’m the Big Kahuna around here.” This is literal. It actually happened. I stared at him in disbelief and immediate dislike. He then proceeded to tell me, an asthmatic of 16 years, with a pulmonologist, that there was not a difference between inhalers and nebulizers and that my pulmonologist was wrong. Sure, the medicine is the same, but how the medicine is distributed and the effects that this distribution has is very different. It they were so god damned similar, when I went to hospitals they wouldn’t give me TREATMENTS with Albuterol and Proventil, they’d give me more puffs of my inhaler.  Not to mention that you, Mr. General Doctor, are not a SPECIALIST whose  had 40+ years of experience in the pulmonary fields.  … STFU.

This was one of many douchebag doctors I’ve encountered.

Which, by the way, thank you Government for making CFC inhalers illegal. Now inhalers don’t work at all. So when I’m dying for breath on the ground because my inhaler has virtually no effect and I still wheeze like crazy afterwards, I’ll remember that it was you who condemned me to such a fate.

Reason 5:  No one listens.
Case: This ties back a little bit into the former statement of only ever having one doctor actually listen to me, but it is serious. The best doctors are the ones that listen, even if your patient is going on and on. This isn’t just doctors, though, this applies to nurses as well.

When I walk into a emergency room hunched over because I can’t breathe and I can’t complete full sentences and you sit me down and start asking me questions about who I am, where I live, do I have insurance … WHAT THE FUCK. I’m sorry, yes, let me sit here and answer those things for you while I’m suffocating slowly like a fish out of water. Then, when I finally answer all your questions through wheezes and gasps, please, lets move to the back room in a wheel chair where I for some reason get to sit and instead of getting my albuterol right away, I get asked MORE questions until finally the doctor comes in and goes, “Um…” and a respiratory therapist is called because — god almighty, the woman whose lips are turning blue from answering all their questions does need medicine stat.

When I look at you, a nurse, and say, “Hey, if you put that IV in the crevice of my elbow, you will never be able to give me medicine through it and it will hurt like hell.” Then, they sit there arguing with you about it even though say, “Listen, I know this for a reason. I used to have it done all the time and they’d just have to take it out and put on my hand and because either they couldn’t use it or it hurt so bad that I couldn’t stand it.” I mean, there would be a debate about this. I’m assuming they didn’t want to do this because it’s harder to do an IV in your hand, but I’m sorry, I’m only going through the pain once.

When I sit there and tell you I can’t breathe, don’t encourage me to continue on with a PFT. I once went in with a mild asthma attack and because of the PFTs I ended up getting admitted. I had to do it so many times (for what reason I still can’t remember) that it actually made my lungs become sore and soon after my asthma went from mild to worse while sitting in the car right after a treatment and I turned around and had to be admitted. Why would you make me do that so much that my lungs become SORE and the oxygen deprivation almost causes me to faint? Oh, no, you’re right, you know better.

When I’m sitting in a bed, not allowed to move, after being stuck repeatedly by one of your new nurse trainees and blood got all over my shirt because she couldn’t do it properly after sticking me three times, and I’m freezing cold  and suffering from the albuterol tremors and say, “Could I please have a blanket?” Do not come back 30 minutes later with said blanket. This is happened a multitude of times where all I wanted was a blanket and as soon as they walked out the door I was forgotten about.

There you go. 5 reasons that even though I’m a chronic asthmatic, I will never, ever go back to a Doctor’s office or Hospital again. Ever. AND STOP TRYING TO STEAL MY MONEY YOU BASTARDS.

Ask any gamer. We don’t GAME to be healthy and fit. I like a controller. That’s what thumbs are for. I like to sit on my boney white ass and stare at a screen and my involvement shouldn’t be past finger sweat during a really epic scene.

However, the gaming industry looked upon Americans, saw a niche that hadn’t been filled, and swooped down on it. The WEIGHT LOSS Industry. A way to attract a new population.

“Hey, want to lose weight? Get your heart moving with this line of awesome new SUPER WEIGHT LOSS!!!1111!!! GAMES.”

If you have to play a god damned game and use Kinect or Move to get yourself UP and MOVING … just go outside. Jesus. I mean, seriously, stop pretending to raft on Kinect, and go actually raft on a river. I mean, I think one of the few exceptions are the Dance games (like, DDR, Just Dance, Just Dance 2, etc). You can learn to dance without being embarrassed, or dance in the privacy of your own home, but pretty much everything else — JUST GO OUTSIDE. I promise, even though I’m allergic to everything in nature, it wont kill you.

Real gamers, don’t want to be that involved. So Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo — START MAKING GAMES THAT ARE FUN AGAIN. I’m sick and tired of seeing 234235325323532 new games all involving movement. Give me God of War, give me Call of Duty, give me a new MMORPG or Strat. I swear to god though, if any level of movement is involved past my digits, I’m going to /quit and never buy a system again. I’ll stick to computer gaming.

It’s also not often that I take time to recommend an artist. Why? Because as nice as they may be, I frequently don’t find myself putting their songs that I buy on repeat just to hear it again and again. This song, I can safely say I have along with others from Paul Kim. I urge everyone to support this talented artist because it’s definitely very rare when they do come along.

Take a gander at his new music video and you can get a copy of this amazing new song on iTunes!

Since am making a post not only about the artist, but about the video — I do feel like it would be nice to point out some likes and dislikes about the video.

Likes
It was very clean and the transitions were well done. I also thought it was well shot.
More about the song than theatrics.
Simple. (Goes both ways…)

Dislikes
However, I really only listened for the song. The music video, while good, doesn’t really make me want to watch it. I feel like this song had a ton of potential as a story with a ton of raw emotion that could really grab and pull a person in which was not utilized. I think it would have been easy as well since PK’s voice is naturally full of soul.

There is always something detrimental happening to our waterways. You hear about it more and more — water shortages, water scarcity.  The movie “Blue Gold” chronicled some of the issues and wars started over water resources.  Yet people seem unworried about the destruction of our life source. Yet, you can live 4-6 weeks without food, but you cannot live more than 2-10 (depends on temp & shade) days without water.

It has been shown that if you lose just 2.5% of your body weight from water loss, you will loose 25% of your efficiency. For a 175 pound man that is only about two quarts of water. As the survivor dehydrates, his blood becomes thicker and loses volume. This causes the heart to work harder and circulation of blood to be less efficient. In a survival situation, loosing a full one quarter of your physical and mental abilities due to dehydration could mean the end of your life. Bottom line: drink plenty of fluids whether you feel thirsty or not so that you stay a peak efficency.

So it flabbergasts me that people do not want more done or do not want to do more. Water is NOT A RENEWABLE RESOURCE. Water must be recreated on a water cycle and unfortunately we withdrawal more water than can be replenished by this cycle. As a result, we are taking out more than it can create — thus even though it may seem a “renewable resource” it’s actually not.

Water Cycle: Evaporation, Condensation, Precipitation, Collection — (Rinse & Repeat)

Our water which comprises 80% of our planet is threatened and something needs to be done. Tighter restrictions in the Mississippi, better ways to deal with farm run off (which links to the increase in land destroyed to make way for more and more cattle) are just a few things that deal specifically with the Gulf of Mexico — don’t even get me started on overfishing. There are so many problems that tie into each other that it’s impossible to really look at one source and know how to solve the problem, but the scale and mass shouldn’t be a deterrent and even more so, people must start to care if anything is going to be done.

Filed under: Environment Tagged: bp, Environment, environmental issues, fish, gulf of mexico, oil spill, the environment, water, water cycle, water scarcity, water shortage ]]> http://cjcotton.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/road-of-fish/feed/ 0 cjcotton fishhighway http://cjcotton.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/random-ponderings/ http://cjcotton.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/random-ponderings/#comments Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:24:06 +0000 Courtney http://cjcotton.wordpress.com/?p=526 ]]> It’s easy for humans to look at a species and determine that the actions of that species is endangering an ecosystem. For instance, the most recent topic of  Nutria. They are being hunted for their pelts and the reasoning being that they are an invasive species that were brought over from South America and are destroying the wetlands. Thus,  so their pelts do not go to waste, they are selling them to the fashion industry.

Now, this isn’t a pondering about the morality of skinning an animal. It is however something that I was randomly pondering after reading the article which is — it is so easy for humans to notice overpopulation issues and the detriment it can play on the environment when it comes to other animals. In fact, we control it and deem it ‘wrong’ and something that must be taken care of. We study it and the effects, such as the reindeer on Saint Paul Island in Alaska.  And yet — all if this we do not apply to ourselves.

We see exactly what happens when animals without predators are allowed to thrive. They breed excessively and consume without regard until there is nothing left to consume, wiping themselves out along with any other species who relied on the same food source. We watch as animals go extinct, habitats are destroyed, constant news articles discussing the overpopulation and environmental issues. I mean, you look at the Taiji Dolphin Massacre where one of the driving ideas is to remove competition from the waters by ruthlessly and cruelly murdering dolphins, an intelligent life force with brains larger than humans,  and then selling their mercury ridden meat to schools and people.

One part of me understands people are trying to control the human population. That things are being done to solve the issue, but at the end of the day … I’m not sure that we can fight off our fate, similar to that of the reindeer on Saint Pauls, with the element of greed that lives in humans. People need to work and have a job and markets that are detrimental the environment will rise and be allowed and when people do not have jobs, crime rises … another method of our particular species destroying itself because when we have no predators, the only others we have to fear are our kind.

… The idea is so big I cannot even wrap my mind around it, but it’s a rather frightening one.

So how come in the food industry, when something goes wrong, do people think it’s okay to be angry or short with the person who is trying to help them?

Now I understand that it runs both ways. Sometimes you are angry, the other person is not being sympathetic to your plight, but that’s when you go the next chain up. You don’t have to be mean back because that’s not really a justification.  All your doing is spreading that anger around.

I have a temporary job working at a food place and I have worked at food places in the past. Most of the time I bite my lip and shut it up, but sometimes I just wonder what is going through people’s heads. Why would you ever think it’s okay to call a person a name? Yell at them? If you are one of these people, why do you think it’s okay to look at a person and to make yourself feel better, try to make them feel bad? There is a question you should ask yourself about what type of person you might be when making another person feel bad makes you feel better and justified.

So here is my list of 5 things not to do when being a patron of a restaurant. Feel free to add.

1) Do not yell. This is something that is never acceptable. You don’t yell at people period, but even more so, why would you make a person feel bad because — yes you are talking to a person about a mistake? There are hundreds of customers everyday and yes it’s unfortunate, but they happen. As long as the person is willing to fix it and do what they can, suck it up, and be as kind as you can so that it’s pleasant for everyone. The restaurant did not mean to mess up your order and I guarantee you the waitress didn’t. Miscommunication happens, buttons slip, or orders get fudged because with that much human going around, there’s bound to be error. While the process has gotten better, it’s impossible to expect PERFECTION because humans are imperfect.

2) Do not INSULT the person who is helping you. I’m sorry if something bad happened, but personal attacks? Really? And of course with American’s philosophy of, “Well, the customer’s always right..” has led people to think that it’s okay for some people to be jackasses because — hey, that employee can’t say anything back at risk of losing their job and even more so, it’s acceptable for you to be the biggest d-bag in the world. No, no it’s not. This person is standing in front of you and can help you and you want to bash them?

(I had a personal experience with this today. I must say, I am human, so when they insulted me — I didn’t want to help them. I didn’t want to give it my everything to fix their problem because they were a raving d-bag who felt it was okay to attack me for their own error, as it turns out.)

3. Tip. Why is this even an issue? I must bold this for those who do not know…

WAITRESS MAKE LESS THAN MINIMUM WAGE.

Yep. You didn’t know that? As a waitress I made 2.13/hr. The money I got in tips is my “paycheck” though it’s important to note that if you fall below what you’d make in an hour, you do get min. wage comp. Regardless, it’s not appropriate to EVER not leave a tip. You’re not brave, you’re not cool. When you go out to a SEATED establishment, be ready to do a 15, 20, or 25% tip. Obviously 15% being if it was below average service and the only time 0% tip is acceptable is if the waiter or waitress just basically does not serve you. And honestly, even if your order is wrong, 0% is still not acceptable because you don’t penalize the waiter/ess for this mistake. It may have not BEEN them and as long as they were sincere and willing to do anything to help get it fixed, they still deserve tip because they HELPED you and SERVICED you.  I’m not a waitress now, but I see how hard they work and how busy they can get. During a rush, a single waitress can get sat with 2 or 3 tables at the same time. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to be patient. It sucks, again, I know, but nothing you do will make it any better and will make it less pleasant for everyone if you’re going to be a jerk about it.

4.  Do not destroy stuff on the table, destroy the bathrooms, put gum under the table, or loosen salt, oregano, pepper, etc shakers. Really? That’s not a cute prank and all you did was make someone’s day a little worse. Did you need to do that? Did you need to make someone feel a little bit worse? What if they were having an amazing day and then you put a damper on it? Moods can be easily altered and so someone can be feeling just great and then you mess with them and mark it. I hope that was worth it. I hope the cheap laugh was really, really worth it. You’re a great person, really. GREAT person. So intelligent.  U r Smartz.

5. Remove the “Customer is always right” philosophy from your head. It’s dumb. You’re not always right. In fact, I’ve noticed at least in the tech industry you’re often WRONG. In my every day mundane jobs, it’s prevalent there too. Sometimes you’re not and that’s good for you, but no need to be mean about it (censoring).

So there you go. You’re now ready to eat at a restaurant. Common courtesy and patience are key in any situation.