Psychodocs....

Sunny here.

I believe in your constitutional rights. Let's just get that out of the way.

• Now, did you decide to become a police officer? Duty: Protect citizens and property from harm. Except for wetbacks.
• Did you decide to become a firefighter? Duty: Protect citizens and property from harm. Except for niggers.
• Did you decide to become a financial adviser, accountant, or broker? Duty: Help people make investments and learn about money, taxes, savings, debt, and security. Except for euro-trash.
• Did you decide to become an architect or engineer? Duty: Build strong, reliable, storm- and earthquake-resistant buildings. Except for Chincs.
• Did you decide to become a guidance counselor or adviser? Duty: Help students figure out the best course to continue or finish their studies and become smarter, better, more educated citizens. Except for white trash and the poor.
• Did you decide to become an adoption, child welfare, or social services worker? Duty: Provide advice, shelter, placement, and services for the underprivileged and those in need. Except for queers.
• Did you decide to become a lawyer or judge? Duty: Give citizens legal aid and fair judgments based on the charges and the law. Except for towelheads.
• Did you decide to become a doctor, pharmacist, nurse, or other health care provider? Duty: Diagnose and treat people, male or female, gay or straight, rich or poor, old or young, healthy or ill, married or single, delusional or sharp, and to promote good health and help people and patients in time of medical need. Except for heathens, sinners, and non-believers.

While the majority of this article began with arbitrary observations (I pulled racial and socially negative epithets from my hat), the last observation is becoming very true. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and medical specialists are deciding more and more that they can refuse treatment, refuse referrals, refuse drugs, and even act judgmentally towards patients without the least guilt on their part if a possible treatment doesn't meld with their religious beliefs. Note that I said religious, not ethical, beliefs. You've got to be kidding me, right? And they've even won some of their religious arguments in court. What I'm not getting is:

a) If you don't believe in granting patients the care they need (at the risk that you may someday run afoul of a symptom/diagnosis/treatment against your beliefs), then don't become a doctor or pharmacist or health-care provider to begin with. That was your career choice, remember?

b) If you can fight and win in the courts on the grounds of your religious beliefs, why can't the patient? Besides having religious beliefs that should be honored, the patient has a right to treatment without judgment and with regard to his/her well-being, not prejudiced bullshit and archaic rules about who does and doesn't deserve the proper care.

c) If you truly believe a certain way but choose to be a physician, nurse, pharmacist, medical provider, or social servant and can't stand some provisions of health care, then start your own private clinic or practice. Don't work in emergency rooms, hospitals, public clinics, student health care centers, or other practices where you can't pick and choose your patients and their needs. Take a stand on your own time and in your own practice, if you please.

States have begun passing more laws in favor of these antiquated farces rather than catching up to the 21st century and protecting patient health. I've got no use for the politicians protecting these screwballs or for the assholes practicing religion rather medicine. Hey, assholes! Heads up...become priests or ethics professors rather than doctors. If the pay isn't as good, too fucking bad. At least you're getting to practice and preach your way.

Thanks,
Sunny

Wish I'd said that.....

Sunny here.

This is the first I've ever heard of the Article V convention, which made me want to learn more about it. Beyond that, Mr. Hirschhorn also paints a pretty accurate picture of problems in our country, especially about us losing sight of what's important because we are distracted by entertainment, materialism, etc.

Please read "Are Americans Unready to Boil?" by Joel S. Hirschhorn, then follow up with his article called "Americans Unready to Revolt, Despite Revolting Conditions". Pretty damn good spot of writing and thinking, if you ask me.

Take care,
Sunny

Good movie. Great friendship!

Sunny here.

So Guarding Tess is not a "great" movie, but the more I saw it after it came out, the more I liked it. One reason: Friendship. At some point (or points) in your life, you find out who your friends are. In the movie, despite differences in politics or ambitions or personal beliefs or backgrounds or status, the former first lady and her head of security, Doug Chesnic, become and are friends, even if they think they don't like each other. She is especially touched by this younger man's reaction at the funeral of her husband (which she watches over and over again on a tape of the live broadcast), who was a president that Chesnic protected. Fictional or not, one has the impression that hers was not an affected response, which makes it all the more meaningful in the movie.

This movie grows on you and gives you an insight into a true friendship, as when the former first lady forces a helicopter to re-land, and she has all the pompous bureaucrats disembark so that her personal security team can ride with her to the hospital even though the additional security forces feel her team has been disgraced and doesn't deserve the ride with her. Interesting to note that she doesn't feel her security detail has been disgraced at all even though she's constantly at odds with them and has been kidnapped and has had to be rescued but refuses to go anywhere without them.

Guarding Tess reminds us that friendships are not easy and require work and compromise and growth on both parts. Irritation, disagreement, disillusionment, affectation, qualification of terms: some or all of these negatives emerge in a true friendship of more than a few years. But a real friendship survives and is even enhanced by our personal growth and personal battles. For once, Hollywood got it right.

Thanks,
Sunny

R.I.P. Kelsey

Kelsey,

I did not know you, and neither did most people outside of Overland Park, Kansas. However, your friends and family loved you. Over the last 100 years, many others in this country have been abducted, raped, and/or killed, and some received media coverage, and some didn't. Your abduction got massive coverage, which doesn't make your death any less tragic or mean that you earned or didn't earn attention. You were a human being who needed our concern and prayers, our skills and manpower, our love and empathy. But it reminds us that all should get the same attention, black or Asian or Hispanic or white, educated or drop-out, beautiful or plain or disfigured or handicapped, male or female, preteen or teenager or adult, married or single, runaway or church-goer. Children, friends, family, neighbors...in fact, all of us in this country need to be safe. Period.

We're all thinking of and praying for you, your family and friends, and even total strangers who put their all into finding you. Kelsey, you are not forgotten, even by this total stranger. Rest in Peace, Kelsey, and know that your family, friends, volunteers, neighbors, and law enforcement agents put their all into making sure that you were found and properly laid to rest, that your attacker will never have another chance to hurt someone else, and that we're one step closer to making sure that sadists and perverts and abusers and killers like him disappear. We'll miss your contributions to this world (which I have no doubt would have been tremendous!), but you unintentionally captured a freak of nature who enjoyed harming other beings.

Thank you, Kelsey, for being you; from what I've seen and heard, you were a strong and vibrant young lady on her way to wisdom and success and contribution to humanity.

I, and the rest of our great country, are sorry for not getting to know you.

Sweet dreams, Kelsey,

Sunny

Grace vs. Disgrace

Grace: Elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action.
Disgrace: A person, act, or thing that causes shame, reproach, or dishonor or is dishonorable or shameful.

Paris Hilton is a disgrace as a human being who could be helping others with her money (a la Princess Diana, who wasn't a famed actress or singer or talent but used her money, fame, and looks for some good causes, even if they were a bit self-serving on occasion), but Paris has chosen to be a spoiled brat, a party girl with no goals or charitable affiliations, and a self-centered narcissist. Her family's enabling and ensuring her of all those qualities is also a disgrace.

Frankly, I can't believe Paris's father didn't take a belt to her years ago, but I guess he's been too busy advising her to get drunk, get laid, wear revealing clothes, and not only show off but brag about her indiscretions rather than be embarrassed by them. And, in the end (or perhaps, the beginning of a long, Elizabeth Taylor-style downfall, which still carried the whiff of fame her parents seem to embrace rather than rue), she'll be encouraged to marry. Not that embarrassments or morals or encouraging true individuality seem to be issues for her enabling parents, who are ensuring that she'll be supporting whatever vapid loser/motivational speaker/used-car salesman/Lothario wannabe she gets knocked up by or that her parents pick because he's good looking and can schmooze and has a reasonably good background (if you ignore the juvenile record), even though he has no brains and is more narcissistic than she is.

Sorry to be convoluted, but if you followed all that, what I'm saying is that Paris's parents are encouraging her future to be a public, drug-addled, divorce-ridden, embarrassing fall from "fame", which includes tabloid rumors about drugs and alcohol, domestic abuse, and custody battles. Sound familiar? Open your tabloids. Don't believe me? Go back and check the tabloids since the 1920s for similarities. Hell, go back and check yesterday's tabloids about ANY young star/famous person.

Just FYI, Mrs. Hilton, having your famous daughter's mom boo-hoo every time her poor baby gets mistreated (i.e., has to follow the rules or laws), doesn't help. I guess granting her all of her wants, ways, wishes, and whims is considered being a good parent in your family, but where the fuck were you raised? Didn't they have rules and etiquette and make you sit at a kid's table at holidays and tell you to eat your vegetables and make you do your homework and have traditions and learn respect for others that children couldn't and didn't override without grave consequences? So why are you ignoring your past, Mrs. Hilton? And why hasn't your husband stepped up to the plate and put his foot down? Too bad, so sad, your daughter suffers for YOUR spoiling HER.

She just finished serving a pathetic amount of time in jail, which means "the system" enabled her as aptly as her pathetic parents. In other words, being a whiny, spoiled brat with money means you get off. Her parents need to take a good look at Anna Nicole Smith and O.J. Simpson before they have another cognac and congratulate each other on getting their little princess out of trouble. (FYI, Mr. and Mrs. Hilton, one way you end up a dead, too young, drug-addled prostitute with no morals, and the other way you end up an idolized, sociopathic, and egotistical murderer with no morals.)

What's even more pathetic is actor Tom Sizemore, who has been in trouble for years with much more serious charges than Paris Hilton. He has continued to attend the parties and roam the streets of Hollywood and be hired for films despite being arrested more than once and having violated his probation more than once. Although one could argue whether Paris Hilton's 45 days was fair or not (she still deserved jail time, IMHO, but maybe not 45 days for a non-violent offense), Tom Sizemore should be serving serious jail time, period. No argument, please. Once again, we see a famous person getting away with violations that no normal person or street thug or unknown would be allowed.

Tom Sizemore, whether you like him or not (which I do in his movies, especially True Romance and Saving Private Ryan), deserves jail time. Would our courts please quit coddling and acquitting criminals who happen to be famous, please?

Thanks to Dictionary.com for the definitions.
Sunny

Illegal Immigrants

Elected people of all parties and persuasions, Beware! For some reason, y'all are just not getting it!

Democrat or Republican, we don't want illegal immigrants to be granted amnesty. Period. I have paid into this system for how many years but can't get assisted health care or get tax breaks because I'm not married, don't have kids, and make too much on the one hand (just enough to get by), and don't qualify for being a charity case on the other because I haven't popped out multiple illegitimate kids (citizens or otherwise), haven't put my illegitimate and/or illegal immigrant kids and family into our health, education, and unemployment system, and have actually worked for a living.

George W. is trying to put his political history on the same level as Ronald Reagan in the hopes of saving himself from his low approval rating in Iraq. It'll never happen. In fact, he's making things worse, even in his own party. He already sucks, but what he's not seeing is that everyone, and I mean everyone, is fighting it this time. Even conservatives who worshiped Reagan hated his granting amnesty.

What happened to representing the People? When most of those surveyed (male, female, conservative, liberal, immigrants who followed all the rules to become citizens, etc.) say they disagree with granting amnesty, then why aren't the politicians elected to represent them listening? Survey says, they just don't care anymore because they have their own agendas.

What aggravates me even more is that media and talk radio continue saying that Democrats and the left support this bill, which makes no sense since many of us "libs" DO NOT support this at all. Maybe the "elected" do, but that's what I was talking about above. As a citizen who works for a living and has spent years paying into the system, I do not support this bill! Texas Overnight host Charley Jones cited a reputable survey stating that Democrats and Republicans alike were against amnesty for illegal immigrants, then the very next week he kept talking about how the "Dems" approved of it. What? Mr. Jones, please don't cite one thing and then incite another. Some few idiot elected "Dems" may approve of it, but this liberal, educated, taxpaying lower middle-class person does not!

And the idea that a thinking person, regardless of ethnicity, would waste time going home to his/her country, digging up $5000 he/she doesn't have, and waiting 13 years to become a citizen, rather than keep doing what he/she already has been, is ridiculous. In other words, most illegals will stay right here! Enforcement is already limited, so how will this change things?

And let's take it one step further: If all the illegals here are granted amnesty, follow all the rules (payments, going home, etc.), and are entered into the system, the cheap labor everyone keeps citing goes away. The new citizens will be awarded employee benefits, protection, and legal wages. So then what happens? NEW illegals flood the system with the cheap labor that was lost! Hellooooooo? Who's not following this besides the politicians? As long as employers get away with hiring cheap labor (laws that are already on the books and rarely enforced address this), what's actually going to change other than I'm competing for benefits with pardoned illegals who haven't paid into the system? And then those new "legals" are replaced by more, possibly cheaper "illegals" to make up for the loss to employers? Huh?

I know political sides in this country have reached the point of not even having rational debates or discussions, but some things are so obvious that we should put political disagreements aside. This new bill is ridiculous on its face and in its adherence and enforcement.

If a person wants to be a citizen, guidelines are available and have been followed by thousands of immigrants who are now citizens. They worked at learning English and American history, learning the rules and laws, taking the tests and filling out forms, paying the fees, enrolling their kids, and, eventually, swearing in as proud citizens of the United States. They earned their citizenship. What's so hard to understand about that?

Banks = Loan Sharks

Sunny here.

I read an interesting story on MSNBC that got my blood boiling because I've been there within the last two years. If you go to that story about bank overdraft fees, you may or may not see my comments (edited here for context) on their blog, but they weren't published when I passed this on to you (time delay; nothing unusual). Having gone through this crap with one particular bank, I felt I had to respond.

I'm shocked by how many are so clueless as to what happens to bank and credit card customers regarding fees, interest rate hikes, etc. Many people who have gotten screwed aren't whiners who don't know how to keep track of their accounts. And they're not necessarily victims of identity theft either.

I started a new account closer to a home I bought. I had a bank account (in good standing) with another bank for more than six years at that point, but it was a much farther drive to their nearest branch once I'd moved, and I didn't want to close my old account right away. I was told at my new, closer-to-home bank that I had overdraft protection of $400 with no fees.

Not long after, while I was trying to sort out my two bank accounts, I got $40 out of the ATM at my new bank. I was overdrawn at that point and didn't realize it. The ATM didn't warn me that they were charging $25 for the transaction, seeing as how I was overdrawn (which they knew at this point; I found out later); it just said I was being charged a $1.00 fee like always. More than 10 days after that withdrawal, I got five $25 overdraft fees within two days, including one for the ATM withdrawal. I called the bank and said the reason I asked for overdraft protection is so I WOULDN'T be charged fees if I went over, especially while I was sorting out my accounts. They said I did have overdraft protection but that they charged $25 per transaction even under the $400 limit. HUH???? So WHAT'S THE POINT of overdraft protection? WHY would I pay $125 in overdraft fees for a total of five transactions that equaled $162 (including $40 at an ATM for cash) if I thought I was going to be charged fees in the first place? I'd have made just ONE transaction at $162 and had ONE $25 fee if I really knew what the heck was going on.

So all you people telling the rest of us to take responsibility and quit whining, how about asking YOUR financial institutions to remember what customer service is about (once upon a time, they worked with you whether you were a Rockefeller or a dirt farmer) and to provide truthful responses about fees and not lie to your face or print everything in such small font that no reasonable person can/won't read it? My "New Accounts" lady flat out said that there were no fees under my $400 overdraft protection, but the assholes up the line said I should have read the small-type, 20-page booklet with a magnifying glass and figured out that there were fees. WRONG! Why should you have to have a lawyer to open a bank account?

I'm no longer a customer of this bank, and I made every effort to work it out with them. I obviously owed the $162 in actual transactions, which I had no problem with, but I refused to pay the $125 in overdraft fees. After multiple phone calls over several days to higher and higher levels of people, when they wouldn't back down, I finally said I'd pay all but one of the overdraft fees (even though I argued vehemently), which was the $25 fee for the ATM withdrawal. Again, they refused to work with me. I finally told them that their customer service sucked, that they were missing out on a potentially very good customer, and I moved all monies back to my old, but thankfully still-existing, account without ever paying them their damn fees. Oh well. Funny how they haven't pursued me for their $125 though.