So, yet again, I was trying to explain the 60 year plan to some people. Being an audience that was more sympathetic to my views made it much easier than usual to explain my rationale. However, they helped me realize it wasn't particularly vegetarianism, nor even veganism, per se, that I'm trying to accomplish. But I realize that there isn't a term that I'm aware of, to describe my eventual desired modality of diet. Factory Farm Fetishist (FFF)? Meatrixism? Organic Omnivore? Sustainable Snacker? Ecological Eater? Any suggestions?
I suspect at some time I should make some manifesto about how I feel particularly about this issue. I realize of course that I also am not currently in the optimal situation to be properly dealing with it either.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Friday, May 05, 2006
Alice in Wonderland
The big news today is that Qlong is in Canada. I think celebrations of gruel are in order... hee hee hee
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Ten Little Indians
So, one of my creatures has already been decapitated, within two days of being brought home. That leaves me with ten now... what kind of steward am I?... we shall see how the war shall be waged... 4 days down, 68 to go.... Perhaps I shall invest in electrical fencing, if only for the shock value har har har...
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
FFT - literally
The Pleasures of Eating - by Wendell Berry
Many times, after I have finished a lecture on the decline of American farming and rural life, someone in the audience has asked, "What can city people do?"
"Eat responsibly," I have usually answered. Of course, I have tried to explain what I meant by that, but afterwards I have invariably felt that there was more to be said than I had been able to say. Now I would like to attempt a better explanation.
I begin with the proposition that eating is an agricultural act. Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth. Most eaters, however, are no longer aware that this is true. They think of food as an agricultural product, perhaps, but they do not think of themselves as participants in agriculture. They think of themselves as "consumers". If they think beyond that, they recognize that they are passive consumers. They buy what they want - or what they have been persuaded to want - within the limits of what they can get. They pay, mostly without protest, what they are charged. And they mostly ignore certain critical questions about the quality and the cost of what they are sold: How fresh is it? How pure or clean is it, how free of dangerous chemicals? How far was is transported, and what did transportation add to the cost? How much did manufacturing or packaging or advertising add to the cost? When the food product has been manufactured or "processed" or "precooked", how has that affected its quality or price or nutritional value?
Most urban shoppers would tell you that food is produced on farms. But most of them do not know what farms, or what kind of farms, or where the farms are, or what knowledge or skills are involved in farming. They apparently have little doubt that farms will continue to produce, but they do not know how or over what obstacles. For them, then, food is pretty much an abstract idea - something they do not know or imagine - until it appears on the grocery shelf or on the table.
When food, in the minds of eaters, is not longer associated with farming and with the land, then the eaters are suffering a kind of cultural amnesia that is misleading and dangerous. The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal or pre-prepared or fast food, confronts a platter covered with inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality. And the result is a kind of solitude, unprecendented in human experience, in which the eater may think of eating as, first, a purely commerical transaction between him and a supplier and then as a purely appetitive transaction between him and his food.
And this peculiar specialization of the act of eating is, again, of obvious benefit to the food industry, which has good reasons to obscure the connection between food and farming. It would not do for the consumer to know that the hamburger she is eating came from a steer who spent much of his life standing deep in his own excrement in a feedlot, helping to pollute the local streams, or that the calf that yielded the veal cutlet on her plate spent its life in a box in which it did not have room to turn around. And, though her sympathy for the slaw might be less tender, she should not be encouraged to meditate on the hygienic and biological implications of mile-square fields of cabbage, for vegetables grown in huge monocultures are dependent on toxic chemicals - just as animals in close confinement are dependent on antibiotics and other drugs.
The consumer, that is to say, must be kept from discovering that, in the food industry - as in any other industry - the overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price. For decades now the entire industrial food economy, from the large farms and feedlots to the chains of supermarkets and fast-food restaurants, has been obsessed with volume. It has relentlessly increased scale in order to increase volume in order (presumably) to reduce costs. But as scale increases, diversity declines; as diversity declines, so does health; as health declines, the dependence on drugs and chemicals necessarily increases. As capital replaces labour, it does so by substituting machines, drugs, and chemicals for human workers and for the natural health and fertility of the soil. The food is produced by any means or any shortcut that will increase profits. And the business of the cosmeticians of advertising is to persuade the consumer that food so produced is good, tasty, healthful, and a guarantee of marital fidelity and long life.
Eaters must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and that how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used. This is a simple way of describing a relationship that is inexpressibly complex. To eat responsibly is to understand and enact, so far as one can, this complex relationship. What can one do? Here is a list, probably not definitive:
Participate in food production to the extent that you can. If you have a yard or even just a porch box or a pot in a sunny window, grow something to eat in it. Make a little compost of your kitchen scraps and use it for fertilizer. Only by growing some food for yourself can you become acquainted with the beautiful energy cycle that revolves from soil to seed to flower to fruit to food to offal to decay, and around again. You will be fully responsible for any food that you grow yourself, and you will know all about it. You will appreciate it fully, having known it all its life.
Prepare your own food. This means reviving in your own mind and life the arts of kitchen and household. This should enable you to eat more cheaply, and it will give you a measure of "quality control": you will have some reliable knowledge of what has been added to the food you eat.
Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is produced closest to your home. The idea that every locality should be, as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of sense. The locally produced food supply is the most secure, the freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to influence.
Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist. All the reasons lists for the previous suggestion apply here. In addition, by such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of merchants, transporters, processors, packagers, and advertisers who thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers.
Learn, in self-defence, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. What is added to food that is not food, and what do you pay for these additions?
Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening.
Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the life histories of the food species.
The last suggestion seems particularly important to me. Many people are now as much estranged from the lives of domestic plants and animals (except for flowers and dogs and cats) as they are from the lives of the wild ones. This is regrettable, for these domestic creatures are in diverse ways attractive; there is much pleasure in knowing them. And farming, animal husbandry, horticulture, and gardening, at their best, are complex and comely arts; there is much pleasure in knowing them, too.
The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of the good health of the garden relieves and free and comforts the eater. The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of the calf contentedly grazing flavours the steak. Some, I know, will think it bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes. The pleasure of eating, then, may be the best available standard of our health. And this pleasure, I think, is pretty fully available to the urban consumer who will make the necessary effort.
Eating with the fullest pleasure - pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance - is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.
Many times, after I have finished a lecture on the decline of American farming and rural life, someone in the audience has asked, "What can city people do?"
"Eat responsibly," I have usually answered. Of course, I have tried to explain what I meant by that, but afterwards I have invariably felt that there was more to be said than I had been able to say. Now I would like to attempt a better explanation.
I begin with the proposition that eating is an agricultural act. Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth. Most eaters, however, are no longer aware that this is true. They think of food as an agricultural product, perhaps, but they do not think of themselves as participants in agriculture. They think of themselves as "consumers". If they think beyond that, they recognize that they are passive consumers. They buy what they want - or what they have been persuaded to want - within the limits of what they can get. They pay, mostly without protest, what they are charged. And they mostly ignore certain critical questions about the quality and the cost of what they are sold: How fresh is it? How pure or clean is it, how free of dangerous chemicals? How far was is transported, and what did transportation add to the cost? How much did manufacturing or packaging or advertising add to the cost? When the food product has been manufactured or "processed" or "precooked", how has that affected its quality or price or nutritional value?
Most urban shoppers would tell you that food is produced on farms. But most of them do not know what farms, or what kind of farms, or where the farms are, or what knowledge or skills are involved in farming. They apparently have little doubt that farms will continue to produce, but they do not know how or over what obstacles. For them, then, food is pretty much an abstract idea - something they do not know or imagine - until it appears on the grocery shelf or on the table.
When food, in the minds of eaters, is not longer associated with farming and with the land, then the eaters are suffering a kind of cultural amnesia that is misleading and dangerous. The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal or pre-prepared or fast food, confronts a platter covered with inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality. And the result is a kind of solitude, unprecendented in human experience, in which the eater may think of eating as, first, a purely commerical transaction between him and a supplier and then as a purely appetitive transaction between him and his food.
And this peculiar specialization of the act of eating is, again, of obvious benefit to the food industry, which has good reasons to obscure the connection between food and farming. It would not do for the consumer to know that the hamburger she is eating came from a steer who spent much of his life standing deep in his own excrement in a feedlot, helping to pollute the local streams, or that the calf that yielded the veal cutlet on her plate spent its life in a box in which it did not have room to turn around. And, though her sympathy for the slaw might be less tender, she should not be encouraged to meditate on the hygienic and biological implications of mile-square fields of cabbage, for vegetables grown in huge monocultures are dependent on toxic chemicals - just as animals in close confinement are dependent on antibiotics and other drugs.
The consumer, that is to say, must be kept from discovering that, in the food industry - as in any other industry - the overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price. For decades now the entire industrial food economy, from the large farms and feedlots to the chains of supermarkets and fast-food restaurants, has been obsessed with volume. It has relentlessly increased scale in order to increase volume in order (presumably) to reduce costs. But as scale increases, diversity declines; as diversity declines, so does health; as health declines, the dependence on drugs and chemicals necessarily increases. As capital replaces labour, it does so by substituting machines, drugs, and chemicals for human workers and for the natural health and fertility of the soil. The food is produced by any means or any shortcut that will increase profits. And the business of the cosmeticians of advertising is to persuade the consumer that food so produced is good, tasty, healthful, and a guarantee of marital fidelity and long life.
Eaters must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and that how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used. This is a simple way of describing a relationship that is inexpressibly complex. To eat responsibly is to understand and enact, so far as one can, this complex relationship. What can one do? Here is a list, probably not definitive:
Participate in food production to the extent that you can. If you have a yard or even just a porch box or a pot in a sunny window, grow something to eat in it. Make a little compost of your kitchen scraps and use it for fertilizer. Only by growing some food for yourself can you become acquainted with the beautiful energy cycle that revolves from soil to seed to flower to fruit to food to offal to decay, and around again. You will be fully responsible for any food that you grow yourself, and you will know all about it. You will appreciate it fully, having known it all its life.
Prepare your own food. This means reviving in your own mind and life the arts of kitchen and household. This should enable you to eat more cheaply, and it will give you a measure of "quality control": you will have some reliable knowledge of what has been added to the food you eat.
Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is produced closest to your home. The idea that every locality should be, as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of sense. The locally produced food supply is the most secure, the freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to influence.
Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist. All the reasons lists for the previous suggestion apply here. In addition, by such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of merchants, transporters, processors, packagers, and advertisers who thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers.
Learn, in self-defence, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. What is added to food that is not food, and what do you pay for these additions?
Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening.
Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the life histories of the food species.
The last suggestion seems particularly important to me. Many people are now as much estranged from the lives of domestic plants and animals (except for flowers and dogs and cats) as they are from the lives of the wild ones. This is regrettable, for these domestic creatures are in diverse ways attractive; there is much pleasure in knowing them. And farming, animal husbandry, horticulture, and gardening, at their best, are complex and comely arts; there is much pleasure in knowing them, too.
The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of the good health of the garden relieves and free and comforts the eater. The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of the calf contentedly grazing flavours the steak. Some, I know, will think it bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes. The pleasure of eating, then, may be the best available standard of our health. And this pleasure, I think, is pretty fully available to the urban consumer who will make the necessary effort.
Eating with the fullest pleasure - pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance - is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Sheherazade
What do you suppose a room full of 40 and 50-something year old nurses and doctors look like when they're belly-dancing? Shimmying and shaking, hip thrusting, veil-wearing, tassels jangling, good old belly-dancing. I've always been told that it's much more challenging than it looks. And, if you're trying really hard not to look like a washing machine on overdrive, or like you have a severe movement disorder, it is. I've also been told that it doesn't matter how old you are, or what body shape you have, you can still look damn sexy doing it. Which is also true.
Monday, April 24, 2006
German Patient
Adultery count is at nine... at least this guy had the decency to marry the woman first before taking her beauty and her womanliness from her. On the other hand, he then left her with two kids, when he decided he was no longer 'called' to be with her, and was 'called' to pursue someone else...
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Baywatch Beauty
How does one move from being an umpire to becoming a lifeguard? Moving from facemask, cleats and whatever that thing they wear to the freedom of a tank top and some swimming trunks? I think there's quite an allegory in there that I have to work on; blessings to CEMC for that.
Speaking of Beauties, I've had the privilege of meeting an amazing woman in the last few weeks: working on the Big Picture, moving on down the Narrow Road, following the Great Commander into the unreached places. Wow! I think I've been blessed by that too... it's been a bit complicated, as there are some mitigating factors that have been mentioned several times before in this blog in various enigmatic (or maybe not so enigmatic) ways... I think maybe because I see myself, what I would have been, what I -am-, what I have been, what I continue to actually be at the heart of things, what I could have been, what I should have been, had my road been a little bit different than it has been over the past few years... which is bittersweet: I have been humbled and amazed by a passionate Beauty, but in that mirroring, I see my pale reflection from the past that is ?lost ?unrecoverable ?stolen by a thief who has no interest in giving it back?
Speaking of Beauties, I've had the privilege of meeting an amazing woman in the last few weeks: working on the Big Picture, moving on down the Narrow Road, following the Great Commander into the unreached places. Wow! I think I've been blessed by that too... it's been a bit complicated, as there are some mitigating factors that have been mentioned several times before in this blog in various enigmatic (or maybe not so enigmatic) ways... I think maybe because I see myself, what I would have been, what I -am-, what I have been, what I continue to actually be at the heart of things, what I could have been, what I should have been, had my road been a little bit different than it has been over the past few years... which is bittersweet: I have been humbled and amazed by a passionate Beauty, but in that mirroring, I see my pale reflection from the past that is ?lost ?unrecoverable ?stolen by a thief who has no interest in giving it back?
Friday, April 21, 2006
ATLS need not apply
I watched someone die today. It's been a while since someone has died in front of me for non-traumatic reasons. Usually, I get called in after the fact in order to register their death with the government. However, today, they just happened to die while I was there. And I stood there, and did nothing. Nothing, while her daughter held her hand and said goodbye; nothing, while the nurse stroked her head and told her to stop fighting and let go; nothing at all. Gasping and grasping at her last breaths over the course of about twenty minutes, we all stood there, watching her die. Slowly, inevitably, crawling towards death.
And, I must confess, I felt very little. What is it about the medical machine that removes emotionality? Is it I, or the system, or something other, that has carefully dissected away my heart from my head?
And, I must confess, I felt very little. What is it about the medical machine that removes emotionality? Is it I, or the system, or something other, that has carefully dissected away my heart from my head?
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Zap! Bang! Kaboom! Splat!
So, in conclusion to the conversation earlier this week: Lois Lane is the DUMBEST of all the romantic-interests-of-superheroes-who-have-secret-identities.
Cases in point: I don't know if The Hulk has a romantic interest or not, but if he did, she could not be blamed if, seeing him in Hulk form, she couldn't figure out who he was, being all huge and green and and angry and all. Spiderman, of course, is the smartest by completely covering his face in that spandexy material, so Mary Jane can't figure out his other identity. Batman really only has a half mask, thus still exposing jaw, mouth and stubble. You'd think Vicky Vale might be able to figure it out after a while, but, I guess having his entire scalp and his upper face covered, she could be excused... maybe...
However, Lois Lane somehow gets entirely mystified when Clark Kent takes off his glasses and puts a little cowlick in his hair. Now if a girl can't figure -that- one out, then she really is a post... on the other hand, non-fictional men have gone for equally dumb women...
Cases in point: I don't know if The Hulk has a romantic interest or not, but if he did, she could not be blamed if, seeing him in Hulk form, she couldn't figure out who he was, being all huge and green and and angry and all. Spiderman, of course, is the smartest by completely covering his face in that spandexy material, so Mary Jane can't figure out his other identity. Batman really only has a half mask, thus still exposing jaw, mouth and stubble. You'd think Vicky Vale might be able to figure it out after a while, but, I guess having his entire scalp and his upper face covered, she could be excused... maybe...
However, Lois Lane somehow gets entirely mystified when Clark Kent takes off his glasses and puts a little cowlick in his hair. Now if a girl can't figure -that- one out, then she really is a post... on the other hand, non-fictional men have gone for equally dumb women...
Monday, April 10, 2006
FFT
"Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not.
You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area.
There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague..."
True statement, that. Guess who said it?
Sadly, Agent Smith, The Matrix
You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area.
There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague..."
True statement, that. Guess who said it?
Sadly, Agent Smith, The Matrix
Saturday, April 08, 2006
FFT
I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD, be strong and let your heart take courage; wait on the LORD.
Psalm 27:13-14
Psalm 27:13-14
Friday, April 07, 2006
Mona Lisa
Isn't it funny how there are some faces that you see that will trigger memories? Just people passing you on the subway or on the street, who just cause your heart to lurch right out of your chest, or make you want to weep? Who remind you of children long dead, tragically lost friends, haunted pasts, broken hearts or those you had tried to save? I know that parents in their grief, despair when they believe that they see their little ones in someone else's buggy. Isn't it amazing how a face: a nose, two eyes and ears and a mouth (and, sometimes, not even that), can do that to the human heart? How a few features can bring to the surface guts, knives and tears? That long-lost memory quickly runs through synapses to bring back in full Technicolour things that had been buried and mourned in ages past?
We are fearfully and wonderfully made; and even though memory is an attribute of the Divine, we, in our imperfection, have marred the gift of memory such that, many a time, it is a curse....
We are fearfully and wonderfully made; and even though memory is an attribute of the Divine, we, in our imperfection, have marred the gift of memory such that, many a time, it is a curse....
Fraternite, egalite, liberte
I'd like to believe that I fundamentally believe in the equality of all under the law. No, not in the Christian sense that we're all sinners yadda yadda, and not in the sense that we completely ignore the individual differences in people, but that, irrespective of gender, race, age, ethnicity, disability/ability etc, being all equally -human-, that there are certain niceties and privileges belonging to all who belong to the human club. That perhaps, though stereotypes or previous experiences may play a role in how I may perceive, or interact, with people, that ultimately, I would proffer respect to all.
But sometimes, I'm not sure if I'm as respectable as that. Sometimes, I'm not sure that we, living in possibly the best democracy in the world (which, I know, is a fairly saaaaad statement to make), are truly as egalitarian as we think we are....
I had some examples as to why I started thinking about this, but I don't think I'll write about them here, today...
But sometimes, I'm not sure if I'm as respectable as that. Sometimes, I'm not sure that we, living in possibly the best democracy in the world (which, I know, is a fairly saaaaad statement to make), are truly as egalitarian as we think we are....
I had some examples as to why I started thinking about this, but I don't think I'll write about them here, today...
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Unfinished piece
Faith, fear, grief, obedience, hope, despair... I think perhaps maybe I mull too much on archetypes... Maybe I should concentrate on vacuous things, as other people do...
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Ghetto quiz
OK kids, it's time to play: What's more ghetto (you know who you are!)?
Creme brulee or body shampoo?
Napkin rings or tea cozies?
Knitting or croquet?
Pistachios or kite-flying?
Hamsters or mittens?
Campfire singalongs or garden gnomes?
Mashimaro coin purses or gelato?
Daffodils or throw cushions with tassels?
Bundt cakes or bird watching?
Porch swings or cobblestone?
Filet O'Fish or Filet Mignon?
Hee hee hee...
Creme brulee or body shampoo?
Napkin rings or tea cozies?
Knitting or croquet?
Pistachios or kite-flying?
Hamsters or mittens?
Campfire singalongs or garden gnomes?
Mashimaro coin purses or gelato?
Daffodils or throw cushions with tassels?
Bundt cakes or bird watching?
Porch swings or cobblestone?
Filet O'Fish or Filet Mignon?
Hee hee hee...
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Snowbirds hitting the fan
What is with these people?? Canadians often wonder why our health care appears to be going to hell in a handbasket and/or why family doctors appear to run their clinics late; I am coming to the conclusion that those who ponder such thoughts are usually the ones that cause the problem. Cases in point:
1. I had a patient, who I had never met, repeatedly call the clinic and harass the secretaries to speak to me... from FRANCE. Finally, not being able to take it anymore, they pulled me out of my clinic to speak to this patient. Appears he was on vacation, and had gone to a French emergency room, where they ALREADY had diagnosed and managed a problem that he had. However, he insisted that he needed to talk to his doctor to find out whether he should insist on being medevac'd home to be seen in the family medicine office (?!?!? Yeah, I'm sure his insurance company would be thrilled on sending a paramedic team to France just to get a guy to his doctor's appointment...), as he wasn't sure whether that was good enough care... in FRANCE.
2. I had another guy, who I had also never met before, repeatedly harass my secretaries again... from ENGLAND. Same scenario, but this guy says, "Hey, I'm on vacation in ENGLAND. I'm feeling naseous... do you think I'm having a stroke?" (I nearly had a stroke. Firstly, for calling freaking long distance while on vacation in a country with perfectly excellent health care, secondly, for asking me to falsely reassure him, never having met the man, or knowing anything about his medical history so that he could assuage his own conscience and not bother to interrupt his precious vacation time by going to see a doctor, after which he would then die and then I'd get sued for providing poor medical advice?? Who the heck did he think he was?) After explaining nausea could also be a symptom of pregnancy, I told him if he was concerned, he should go seek medical attention.
3. A telephone message left for me (these cases are all the more perplexing when you consider the fact that talking to patients on the phone, when it is not an emergency takes precious time away from patients who have actually bothered to come in, who DESERVE to have their appointments kept on time): I collapsed a few days ago. Do you think I'm sick? (What? What am I supposed to do with that? Why the heck didn't he go to the emergency department at the time?)
4. Another message left for me: I'm back from vacation, and I was constipated the whole time (and this is my problem, exactly, why???)
5. Another message left for me: I'm in Ottawa for the week, and I think I've got a yeast infection: Could you please phone in a prescription to this pharmacy in Ottawa? (Excuse me? Who do you think you are? Why the hell would I prescribe a medication for someone I have never seen for a disease I haven't even diagnosed? There are things called walk-in clinics that could see you if you really wanted to see a doctor, and, guess what? You can buy that stuff over the counter, idiot who has a drug plan...)
I cannot believe the self-centredness and sense of entitlement that plagues city people...
1. I had a patient, who I had never met, repeatedly call the clinic and harass the secretaries to speak to me... from FRANCE. Finally, not being able to take it anymore, they pulled me out of my clinic to speak to this patient. Appears he was on vacation, and had gone to a French emergency room, where they ALREADY had diagnosed and managed a problem that he had. However, he insisted that he needed to talk to his doctor to find out whether he should insist on being medevac'd home to be seen in the family medicine office (?!?!? Yeah, I'm sure his insurance company would be thrilled on sending a paramedic team to France just to get a guy to his doctor's appointment...), as he wasn't sure whether that was good enough care... in FRANCE.
2. I had another guy, who I had also never met before, repeatedly harass my secretaries again... from ENGLAND. Same scenario, but this guy says, "Hey, I'm on vacation in ENGLAND. I'm feeling naseous... do you think I'm having a stroke?" (I nearly had a stroke. Firstly, for calling freaking long distance while on vacation in a country with perfectly excellent health care, secondly, for asking me to falsely reassure him, never having met the man, or knowing anything about his medical history so that he could assuage his own conscience and not bother to interrupt his precious vacation time by going to see a doctor, after which he would then die and then I'd get sued for providing poor medical advice?? Who the heck did he think he was?) After explaining nausea could also be a symptom of pregnancy, I told him if he was concerned, he should go seek medical attention.
3. A telephone message left for me (these cases are all the more perplexing when you consider the fact that talking to patients on the phone, when it is not an emergency takes precious time away from patients who have actually bothered to come in, who DESERVE to have their appointments kept on time): I collapsed a few days ago. Do you think I'm sick? (What? What am I supposed to do with that? Why the heck didn't he go to the emergency department at the time?)
4. Another message left for me: I'm back from vacation, and I was constipated the whole time (and this is my problem, exactly, why???)
5. Another message left for me: I'm in Ottawa for the week, and I think I've got a yeast infection: Could you please phone in a prescription to this pharmacy in Ottawa? (Excuse me? Who do you think you are? Why the hell would I prescribe a medication for someone I have never seen for a disease I haven't even diagnosed? There are things called walk-in clinics that could see you if you really wanted to see a doctor, and, guess what? You can buy that stuff over the counter, idiot who has a drug plan...)
I cannot believe the self-centredness and sense of entitlement that plagues city people...
Saturday, March 25, 2006
French Patient
Now the adultery count is at seven and eight, though these were completely unprovoked revelations. It's quite sad, how it rips people's lives apart. Number seven was particularly poignant, as this one involved a child, who no longer knows (well, who never knew) their biological parents, sadly. And who will never know their biological father, as he's the one who fled the situation (unsurprisingly and non-shockingly), leaving the biological mother with very little choice. And whose existence has caused a bittersweet aching on their grandparents' hearts for their lost grandchild. The injustice of all these situations involving these supposedly God-fearing men continues to baffle me. I am convinced that God is a God of justice, and He is One who controls all for good, though it takes faith the size of a mustard seed to believe that He will see His justice done, if not now, amongst current circumstance, then in that hazy future that's called trust.
I really hope I don't have to go through the whole European continent...
I really hope I don't have to go through the whole European continent...
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Short stuff idol
Thanks to Anni, we have now found a suitable karaoke partner for some people... I think I ended up watching this a dozen times in a row... I know, this is totally NOT the forum just to put various clips that I find amusing here, so I apologize... it very likely won't happen again...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kCvImnD32os&search=cute%20lil%20girl
What I totally don't understand is: How on earth did the person videotaping this not die laughing while recording?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kCvImnD32os&search=cute%20lil%20girl
What I totally don't understand is: How on earth did the person videotaping this not die laughing while recording?
Monday, March 20, 2006
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