Tag Archives: health

Please Don’t Drag Me Into Your Life

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I am a stranger.

This morning, as part of my e-mail routine, I checked the list of new Twitter followers. As I’ve said here and elsewhere, I don’t follow many people on Twitter, but I do check out all the new followers I get. Although most are spam these days, occasionally I find one interesting enough to reciprocate the follow.

Today’s batch included one that made me stop and think. About 75% of this person’s recent tweets were about the deteriorating health of her mom. Heart failure, lung problems, pneumonia. She was tweeting from the hospital, she was tweeting after discussions with doctors. She was keeping her followers apprised of what certainly seemed like the impending death of her mother, right down to details about how her father was taking it.

There are a few things that struck me about this.

Should strangers be expected to care?

First, I find it hard to believe that a good percentage of her 1,000+ followers really care enough about her and her life to want to read the grim details of the family health problem unfolding for her and being broadcast on Twitter.

Sure, if my mom went into the hospital, I’d likely mention it once or twice on Twitter. But if she got really sick and I was spending a bunch of time at the hospital as she lived her last days, I don’t think you’d find many blow-by-blow tweets about it. In fact, I don’t think you’d find many tweets from me at all. I’m not very close to my family, but I’m close enough to spend important time with them and to keep it mostly private. I have 700+ followers on Twitter and I’m positive that very few of them need (or want) to know about the things in my life that are real downers.

On the other side of the coin, I’ve followed folks on Twitter who have tweeted about their health problems or the health problems of family members. That’s normal; health problems are a part of life. But if any of them became absolutely consumed with the problem and tweeted mostly about that, I had to take a hard look at the situation. How well do I know this person? What can I do to make it better? How do I feel reading about this day after day, alongside tweets with links to yodeling cats, health care reform analysis, and cartoons? If the person was a stranger and I’d already said the comforting things I could and the tweets were making me feel like shit every day, I’d stop following. I’d have to. I cannot allow my emotional well being to be dragged down by the misfortunes of strangers who, for some reason, need to make their physical or emotional pain a part of other people’s lives.

So no, I’m not saying I stop following people who complain about a bad back or tweet briefly to mention a loved one with a health problem. But if I don’t know you and that’s just about all you tweet about, please don’t blame me for turning off the volume and getting on with my life.

I guess my point is, there’s just some things you shouldn’t expect strangers to deal with.

Can a person’s priorities be this fucked up?

The other thing that struck me is that this person was going through an ordeal with doctors and hospitals and family members, yet she still found time to follow me on Twitter. Are her priorities fucked up or what?

Now you might suggest that she followed me using some kind of automated tool. Lots of people do that for reasons that are not always in the best of interest of the Twitter community. (I don’t think she is a spammer, though.)

When I checked the time-stamp on the follow notification, I saw that she began following me at 5:47 AM today. My last tweet last night was before 10 PM and my first tweet this morning was after 6 AM. So I hadn’t tweeted anything that could trigger an automatic follow at that time of day.

So that leads me to believe that she’s surfing the Web, reading tweets, and interacting on the Internet. She’s somehow found my Twitter address and has decided to follow me.

Now.

While her mother is potentially on her deathbed.

Or is the whole family thing exaggerated? Just a story to make her sound more interesting to people who like to read that sort of thing?

I really don’t know what to think.

I’m not knocking anyone…Just trying to understand.

Please understand that I’m not writing this to knock a specific person dealing with a family problem. I’m just floored by the whole situation, trying to understand how someone’s take on “social networking” can be so incredibly different from mine.

And I’m wondering how off-base my thoughts on this matter are. How do you feel about strangers you meet on social networking sites detailing the sad parts of their lives? What is it that you want from your social networking activities?

Why I Think U.S. Health Care Needs Fixing

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Three true stories.

Health care problems are in the news lately and I can’t help but think about the situation from my own very fortunate point of view. Fortunate because I have health insurance and the financial means to pay for care up to my $3,000 deductible. Too many people simply cannot afford either coverage or the deductibles, even when subsidized by an employer. I consider myself lucky.

I want to share three real life stories from my past to illustrate what I think is wrong with our health care system. Maybe you have similar examples. While I don’t know what the solution is, I know that something has to be done. Remember, I’m fortunate. People who don’t have my resources are basically screwed.

Knee Pain

Years ago, when I was still in my 20s, I fell while ice skating in Rockefeller Center. I vaguely remember the fall — I landed hard on my left knee. But I was young and I got up and kept skating.

A year or two went by. I began having problems with my left knee. A lot of pain when I sat with my legs crossed “indian style,” which I usually do, even while at my desk. I had a “real job” back then and insurance. I decided to see an orthopedic surgeon to see what was wrong with my knee. I had no idea whether it was connected to my ice skating mishap and still don’t. But it’s the only “injury” I can connect with it.

This began a multi-step process that completely tapped out my $1,000 deductible (at the time) and cost my insurance company many thousands of dollars. Here are the steps:

  • Initial consultation. Tell the doctor what hurts and when it hurts.
  • X-rays. Inconclusive — except to show that I was already showing signs of arthritis that was not likely causing this problem.
  • MRI. This is the test that fulfilled my deductible. It was also inconclusive.
  • Physical therapy. Twice a week, I drove to a physical therapy place about 15 miles from my home. I rode a bike, bounced on a ball, and fiddled around with some kind of resistance machine. I did this for two months. My insurance company paid $90 for each visit.

When my insurance “ran out” for the physical therapy, I went back to the doctor and asked if there was anything else he could do. He seemed not to believe I was in pain. He finally said that they could open it up orthoscopically and take a look. I’m not someone who wants surgery, but if that was the last resort, I was ready. I was tired of wasting time and money. If there was something wrong — and there certainly seemed to be — I wanted it fixed.

More steps:

  • Hospital pre-admission. They basically sent me to the hospital to learn how to use crutches. What f*cking waste of time and money that was! Fortunately, I didn’t need to buy a pair; I could borrow them.
  • Outpatient surgery. My doctor put two small holes in my knee area while I slept on a table in the O.R. He poked around in there and found I had a torn meniscus. It was torn in the shape of a triangle with a pointy tip that was evidently jabbing me when I crossed my legs. He cut off the torn part, and closed me. up. I don’t think it took him more than an hour to do everything.

I went home the same day. My knee was swollen. I think they gave me painkillers; I don’t remember much pain. I used the crutches the next day, one crutch the day after that, and a cane the day after that. Then I was pretty much back to normal. I don’t even have scars.

This was my first experience with the health care system’s ability to diagnose and fix a relatively minor but annoying health problem. I realized that a cure wasn’t possible until as many part of the health care system could get a piece of the pie as possible:

  • Doctor – Several consultations and surgery.
  • Physical therapy – don’t even get me started on that.
  • Hospital – X-ray, MRI, crutch lessons (that still pisses me off), and outpatient surgery services.
  • Support staff for surgery – nurses, anesthesiologist, etc.

But I was “cured.” I was happy.

Back Pain

Fast forward to the summer of 2008. I picked up something heavy while seated at my desk. This “threw out” my back. The pain didn’t begin immediately, but it began in earnest a day or two later. It became unbearable on a flight from Phoenix to Seattle with my husband. So bad that I found clinic in the Seattle area and was able to get in to see a doctor within 30 minutes of arrival.

The doctor started out skeptical. I think a lot of people must go to clinics to get drugs. Although I wanted something to stop the pain, I had to fly my helicopter to Arizona over the next two days. I couldn’t take painkillers. I wanted to know what was wrong and what I could do to fix it.

The doctor was good. After hitting my knees with a hammer and surprising me with the results, she had me perform several movements while seated and while standing. She told me I probably had a herniated disc and that I should ask my doctor for an MRI when I got home. She gave me some muscle relaxers and told me not to take them while I was flying.

I was impressed. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going home. I was going to Page, AZ. I figured I’d find a doctor there and follow her advice.

The flight to Arizona was painful, but not unbearable. It wasn’t until I was settled into my camper in a Page campground that the pain became more than I could bear. If I sat at my table for more than 10 minutes, when I got up I could barely walk. I was miserable.

I’d got the number of a local doctor from my health insurance company. But when I called, I was told that the earliest appointment was more than two weeks away. I set up the appointment, not seeing that I had any other choice. The pain got worse by the day. The only relief was when I lay flat on my back, and even that wasn’t making things better. I had to work. I couldn’t just lie around, waiting for a doctor’s appointment that might or might not resolve my problem.

One day, I simply couldn’t take the pain any longer. I found a clinic in Page and went. I signed in. Although the clinic was on my insurance, they wouldn’t accept my insurance. They wanted me to pay up front. There were at least a dozen people waiting in front of me to see a doctor. The wait would be at least two hours. The only seating was aggravating my condition. I was in so much pain that I was crying on and off. No one seemed to care. The other people waiting tried to avoid eye contact.

Finally, I got up and went across the street to the hospital emergency room.

Write this down: Page Banner Hospital. Now, under no circumstances, allow yourself to be taken to this place or any facility associated with it in Page, AZ.

There was no one waiting ahead of me, but I still had to wait 20 minutes to get help. I followed someone down a long hallway, struggling to keep up, since I could barely walk. A doctor came and asked what the problem was. I told him. He did a cursory examination — nothing at all like the doctor in the Seattle clinic had done — and found nothing. He thought I was there for drugs. I told him I wasn’t. I asked him to do a test — something that might shed light on what was wrong. I told him what the doctor in Seattle had said. He wasn’t interested. He sent me with a radiologist for an x-ray.

I was waiting back in the examining room, sitting on a metal chair instead of the examining table, trying not to cry, when I heard the doctor and another emergency room employee at the nurse’s station, chatting and laughing. The doctor told his companion how he liked to use some kind of drug to knock out unruly kids brought to the emergency room. They had a good laugh over that. It was as if I didn’t exist or I couldn’t hear them. They obviously didn’t care about me.

When I’d sat there long enough, the doctor came back in. He said he’d looked at the x-rays and there was nothing on them. He told me to go home and take aspirin.

This “service” cost me over $500. If I didn’t have insurance to negotiate the rates, it would have cost two or thee times that.

A few days later, I tried the clinic again. Ironically, I got to see the doctor I had an appointment for the following week. I gave her my story. She didn’t examine me thoroughly either. Instead, she signed me up for physical therapy.

I made two visits. The first one featured a piss-poor massage. I could have done better for about half the money at a good spa. On the second visit, they had me lie on my stomach and hooked me up to some kind of machine that put electric pulses through my body. Then they just left me alone in a room. After about 10 minutes, I started feeling sick. Five minutes later, I called for help. No one came. A bell rang and the machine shut off a few minutes after that. A few minutes later, someone came in to unhook me from the machine. I told her I didn’t feel well. She said it was because I’d been lying down. Then she left me to leave on my own. I got as far as the appointment desk before I had to sit down. If my back still hurt, I didn’t know it. It was all in my head — dizzy, lightheadedness — I can’t describe it. I asked someone to take my blood pressure. You think I’d asked them to give up their first born! They made me walk to an examining room where they hooked me up to a machine. I was at 180/110. So wonder I felt so bad! But did anyone there seem to care? No. The person who took my blood pressure simply said, “You should get that checked.”

I didn’t show up for the next visit. When they called, I told them they were making me worse. I nearly dropped dead the following month when I saw the bill for the two visits: over $500.

I started dosing up on ibuprofen. Three and four at a time. It kept me functional. I switched from megadoses of ibuprofen to tylenol and back. At night, if I knew I didn’t have to fly the next day, I’d take the muscle relaxants I’d gotten from the doctor in Seattle. The only time I didn’t have painkillers in my system was when I had to fly. But as soon as I was done, I’d dose up again.

This went on for about three weeks. Then, one day, the pain was a lot less than usual. And within a few days, the pain was gone.

Did I have a herniated disc? Had I somehow “fixed” it myself through normal movement? I don’t know. I’ll never know.

All I know is that I spent a lot of money for absolutely no assistance from about a half dozen medical professionals. I spent about a month in serious pain, frustrated that I was unable to get help.

In my honest opinion, the number one reason people should avoid moving to Page, AZ is the absolutely dismal health care available there. If the medical professionals there know what they’re doing — which I doubt — they definitely don’t care.

Maybe I should have given up and gone home to get help. Even if I couldn’t have gotten help in Wickenburg, I could have gone to Phoenix. But I wonder — how many doctors and hospitals and physical therapists would I have to have seen to have the problem diagnosed? How long would I have been in pain — and how much money would I have had to spend?

Chest Pain

Late last year, I began having mild chest pains. The pain would manifest itself in the middle of my chest, at the bottom of my sternum, when or right after I lifted something heavy. At night, I’d sometimes suffer from heartburn or acid reflux, which would wake me with nausea.

I’m in my 40s now and am starting to think seriously about my health. A minor health problem that I would have ignored 20 years ago is now something I should look into. So I started seeking help.

I began with a digestive specialist down in Phoenix. She asked for my symptoms and I told her. She told me to take an over-the-counter remedy for heartburn. Then she listened to my heart with her stethoscope, made some notes on a fancy tablet computer, and left me. I wrote a check for $119.80 against my now $3,000 deductible.

I don’t believe in treating symptoms. I believe in finding causes and treating them. I believe in curing a health problem, not hiding it with medicine.

So I began seeing a local family practitioner, figuring I could start with a basic doctor and work my way up to specialists if I needed to. I told her my symptoms and what I thought it might be: a hiatal hernia. But she zeroed in on the phrase “chest pain” and, after changing my blood pressure medicine, began ordering a bunch of tests:

  • Blood tests (3 of them)
  • Chest x-ray
  • Electrocardiogram
  • Sonogram
  • Echocardiogram

One of these tests showed a tiny abnormality. That sent me to a cardiologist who set me up for a stress test. I passed the stress test with flying colors. There’s nothing wrong with my heart.

I never thought there was.

I still have the same problem I started investigating in January of this year. It’s now June. I’m in Washington now, away from my doctor. I avoid the problem by simply not lifting anything heavy. When the acid reflux flares up, I take Tums.

I’m not done with this. When I get home, I’ll keep pushing. Maybe some medical professional will take a real interest in my real problem and help me find out what’s causing it. I don’t think I’ve found that person yet. Maybe I’ll get the test I need to determine whether I have a hiatal hernia. I don’t care if the answer is yes or no: I just want to know the answer so I can move forward.

I should mention here that the tests I’ve taken for this “chest pain” problem have completely wiped out my $3,000 deductible. That’s three grand out of my pocket — and the problem is not resolved. All I know is that I have a healthy heart. I guess that’s worth something.

But what of the people without health insurance or an extra $3K in a medical savings plan? How would they have shouldered this burden? Would they be convinced they were on the verge of a heart attack?

This is Wrong

Health care shouldn’t be like this. Doctors should listen to symptoms and do what they can during initial consultations to find out what the problem could be. Of all the details I listed here, there’s only one doctor who seemed to have a clue — the clinic doctor in Seattle. No one else was interested in listening to my symptoms or finding the cause of my pain.

Too many doctors assumed I was just seeing them to get drugs. The truth of the matter is that I have enough old bottles of Percocet and Vicodin at home to last a month. I don’t want or need painkillers. I just want to be heathy and feel that way.

One of the current complaints about the health care system is that doctors order too many tests. I can concur with that. Not only are they ordering too many tests, but they’re apparently not ordering the right tests. Tests that can provide conclusive results. An x-ray is not going to show a herniated disc. An EKG is not going to show a hiatal hernia.

Do doctors come into a conversation with a patient with preconceived notions about what a problem could be and then test for that? If a patient has five of the seven symptoms for a problem, do they not test for the problem because two symptoms are missing? Do they choose tests based on how easy they are to get, how much they cost, or what they can reveal?

The health care system in this country is definitely broken. I’d like to see it fixed in my lifetime.

Life’s Short, Live While You Can

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Remembrance of a friend lost.

I first met Erik by phone back in 2006. I’d placed an ad on a helicopter forum, looking for summer work with my helicopter. Erik saw it. He called and introduced himself, then asked if I’d ever heard of cherry drying. It was the beginning of a long-distance friendship.

Erik was a helicopter operator based in Seattle who was building a cherry drying business in Central Washington. He’d just broken into the business and was looking for another experienced and reliable pilot to share the work he expected to get.

That first summer, he was unable to get enough work for two of us. But we stayed in touch by phone. We’d talk every few months, sometimes staying on the phone for an hour or more. He was interested in getting a Part 135 certificate for his business and I offered to help with the mountain of paperwork that the FAA requires.

The second year, 2007, he gave me a lead on a cherry contract in Wenatchee. I followed up on it with a bid. I didn’t get the job. He tried to convince me to fly up anyway. He assured me there would be work. I declined; I couldn’t afford to gamble with such a long ferry flight (10 hours each way). He called me at the end of his first day of drying. He was exhausted. He’d flown 10 hours that day and would fly a lot more that season.

Last year, 2008, Erik lined up enough work for both of us. I made the commitment to come up at the end of May. I’d get my helicopter’s annual inspection at his mechanic in Seattle, then get to work with him in early June.

That was the plan, anyway. Two things happened to change it.

In April, there was a late frost that destroyed about 30% of the Central Washington cherry crop, including half the orchards we’d contracted for. Suddenly, there was only half as much work to do.

Around the same time, one night, Erik woke up, got out of bed, and collapsed on the floor. He was paralyzed from the waist down. One of his vertebrae had crushed.

And that’s when they discovered the cancer.

I didn’t ask many questions. It was hard for me. I listened to what he told me when he called, groggy from medication. I didn’t understand most of it, but I didn’t want to ask questions — especially the big one.

When I flew my helicopter up to Seattle, I rented a car and drove to the hospital where Erik was recovering from back surgery. It was the first time we met in person. Although he’d lost an inch or more in height from his back injury, he was still very tall — maybe 6’5″! — and not at all what I expected. But we greeted each other like old friends.

Erik was learning to walk again. I followed him and a physical therapist and a hospital orderly around the hospital floor as Erik took baby steps. He had to stop twice for rest, sinking into the wheelchair the orderly steered along for him. He was upbeat; this was just a setback. He’d be fine. He expected to be flying again soon. Perhaps he’d even come see me in Central Washington, where I’d be handling all the cherry drying work.

He didn’t come by that summer. I spoke to him a few times. He usually sounded tired and weak. But optimistic. Always optimistic.

Erik’s situation had a profound impact on me. I’d always been a kind of carpe diem person, but now things became urgent for me. Erik was 56 years old. Older than me, but still not very old. His life had taken a sudden change for the worse with paralysis, pain, cancer, chemotherapy, and a never-ending stream of health problems. He couldn’t fly, he could barely walk. His life had been taken from him. The same thing could happen to me. Or anyone else. Erik’s situation reminded me that life was short and you had to make the most of it while you could. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do now; there might not be a tomorrow.

Things for Erik took a turn for the worse in autumn. I tried to plan a trip to Seattle to see him again. With book deadlines, the holidays, and house guests, I couldn’t get it together. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough. Maybe I couldn’t bear to see the new reality of the man I’d associated with that upbeat, friendly voice on the phone. Maybe I just wanted to remember the voice and the person I’d imagined with it.

Then I heard he was in remission. I tried calling him several times. I had three phone numbers for him and tried all of them. Every number had a recording of his voice, asking me to leave a message, promising a call back. His work phone number even suggested that he might be out flying. I knew how unlikely that was.

When I dropped off my helicopter in Seattle again this May, I tried to set up another visit. More calls, more e-mail. No response. I didn’t know what to think.

And then today’s phone call from a mutual friend. Erik had passed away. There would be a memorial service for him in Seattle on Saturday. Because of contractual obligations, neither of us could go. I called a florist and arranged to have flowers delivered. I signed it: “Our Thoughts and Prayers are with You; Jim, Maria, and the Cherry Drying Pilots.”

Erik’s gone, but my memory of him and those phone calls remains. He expanded my horizons by bringing me to Washington State, by introducing me to a new kind of flying, a new way to squeeze a few bucks out of my helicopter investment.

And he reminded me that life is short. Live it while you can.

The Flat Belly Diet

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Don’t waste your money.

I am an idiot. Throughout the past ten years or so, I’ve been conned by at least a half dozen “best-selling” diet books. I thought I’d learned my lesson. But when I picked up The Flat Belly Diet book at a Borders bookstore last week, I said “this is the last diet book I’ll ever buy.”

I should have quit with the previous one.

Another “Breakthrough Diet Plan”

The Flat Belly Diet is yet another attempt — apparently successful — to sell America’s overweight women on an easy way to lose weight. Trouble is, there’s there’s not much that’s either easy or effective about it.

Every “breakthrough” diet has a gimmick. This one has three:

  • The Four-Day Anti-Bloat Jumpstart. This is a mind game, pure and simple. You follow a strict and not exactly convenient diet plan and keep a journal of your thoughts, feelings, and challenges for four days. The goal? Lose your water weight. Up to 7 pounds of it! Well, that’s what one person on the plan lost, anyway. I’m not stupid enough to confuse water weight and bloating gas with fat.
  • MUFAs. This is the biggie. MUFA (pronounced MOO-fah) stands for monounsaturated fat. It’s the “good” fat and The Flat Belly Diet presents one example after another to prove why MUFAs are healthful foods. (Okay, I get it already.) But this is a gimmick with real punch for women — after all, dark chocolate is a MUFA! Yes, ladies, this diet lets you eat chocolate. How can you resist?
  • Get a flat belly without doing “crunches.” Yes, like most diet books, this one promises again and again that you can flatten your belly without exercise. But then it includes an exercise program — if you want better results. Better results than a 6-pound loss in 32 days? What the hell do you think?

Of course, the book is only part of a huge marketing machine. There are already add-on pocket guides and cookbooks. There’s also a Web site, which is offered on a free “trial” basis to book readers. After that, you have to pay. And pay, and pay. After all, isn’t that what “breakthrough diet plans” are all about? Creating a money-making machine to separate desperately overweight people from their money?

When will we see MUFA-fortified “snack packs” on supermarket shelves in yellow in pink packaging? Give them a month or so — they’re probably in production now.

Reality Check

Here’s the reality of dieting and weight control for middle-aged women. You put on fat when you consume more calories — the energy in your food — than you burn in your daily life. As you age and your hormone situation changes, your metabolism slows down and you burn fewer calories. You start fattening up.

If you want to lose weight, you need to take in fewer calories than you burn. You can do this three ways:

  • Eat less of the same stuff. Let’s face it: portion control in this country is a joke. We often choose restaurants based on portion size for the money spent rather than quality or flavor. It’s the American Way of eating. Next time you sit down at a restaurant with a typical portion in front of you, cut it in half and take half home for tomorrow. At home, simply make less food. Use smaller plates. There are many things you can do to eat less. Stop making excuses and just do it.
  • Eat smarter food. Yes, a bag of potato chips is a wonderful-tasting snack. And yes, it seems to “satisfy” your hunger better than a handful of carrot sticks. But guess which one has fewer calories? Duh. Read the damn labels on the food you eat — choose foods with fewer calories per serving. Eat more unprocessed foods, like salads and fresh vegetables and fruits.
  • Get more exercise. Take a walk around the block at lunchtime. Walk to do your errands. Walk your dog. Take a hike with your spouse or kids or grandkids. Take the stairs at the mall. Park on the far end of the parking lot rather than in the closest space. These little bits of exercise can make a huge change in your metabolism if you simply keep moving.

The thing that got me to buy The Flat Belly Diet was the fact that it mentioned calories. (So many diet plans don’t — they lead you to believe that you can eat as much as you like of certain types of food — the hell with balanced diets!) Its diet plan is pretty simple (after the first four days): four meals a day, 400 calories per meal, 1 MUFA per meal. Do you really need a book to tell you that? Of course not. I just did.

But I’ll tell you this, too: 1600-calories a day might not be the right number for you. I know it’s not the right number for me. I don’t lose weight until I drop down to 1000-1200 calories a day. This is probably why so many people on The Flat Belly Diet only lost 5 or 6 pounds after 32 days of dieting. I can lose 5 or 6 pounds in a week and not even feel it — that’s normal body weight fluctuation for me.

In defense of The Flat Belly Diet, they’re trying to convince you that following their plan helps you make a lifestyle change. 1600 calories a day is doable, they argue. It won’t hurt. Is that true for you? I know it’s not for me. When I want to lose weight, I quickly get frustrated when I hit a plateau and stop losing. I know 1600 calories a day won’t do it for me — not unless I take up jogging.

And here’s another thing: I’ve looked at the book’s recipes and menus and portion sizes and guess what? They cover the first two points of my Reality Check list above. This is common sense stuff, ladies! This is the same thing you’d learn in Weight Watchers or by consulting a dietician. Eat less, eat smarter. Toss in one or two good, brisk walks a day and you’ll be able to lose weight without yet another fad diet guiding your meal plans.

What will I be doing with my copy of The Flat Belly Diet? Donating it to my local library. Hopefully, I can save some of my neighbors a few bucks.

Team Earth

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I really don’t understand.

I like to think that I’m a “citizen of the world.” To me, that means that I feel that I (and my country) should be a team player on Team Earth.

Team Earth is the team that works together for the benefit of our world. When we see a crisis looming — global warming comes to mind — we work together to try to prevent it. When we see drought in one part of the world causing mass starvation, we step in with funds and technology to help the victims. When we see genocide killing off huge ethic groups in a country or region, we take action against the murderers.

The players on Team Earth do what’s right for the world. They don’t do just what will benefit themselves, especially at the expense of others.

So I can’t understand it when I hear the comments of some Americans — especially those living the good life — when they talk about “bombing the hell” out of one country, stealing the oil of another country, and ignoring the serious problems of yet another country.

I can’t understand why people would rather set up oil rigs in a pristine wilderness to provide just 5% of our country’s current oil use in 2020 or beyond when they could be spending the same money developing alternative energy sources that don’t destroy the planet — or simply act responsibly to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels. (Do we really need to commute to work in vehicles like Hummers?”)

I can’t understand why people who have health plans (today) are so opposed to a universal health care system that would protect those who are less fortunate from financial ruin in the event of a catastrophic health problem.

I can’t understand why any American — other than a very wealthy one — would support a candidate who would give a taxpayer earning more than $2.9 million per year a $269,000 tax cut (on top of the tax cuts already handed out by G.W. Bush) while cutting the taxes of folks making less than $19K by less than $20 — all while the government is funding an expensive War in Iraq and bailing out financial institutions. (The numbers are summarized here, and here’s a video for those who struggle with tables of numbers.

I know I’m not the only player on Team Earth. But am I the only American player on the team?