Wall Street, Herman Cain In Lead, My Father's Premature Death

Kathleen Parker
Nicholas Kristoff

"Big changes in the Republican field. It's a 10-way tie for Not Romney." – Stephen Colbert

"Sarah Palin announced she’s not running. Finally, a Palin who pulls out before it’s too late." – Jay Leno

David Letterman's "Top Ten Ways Rick Perry Plans To Spend $17 Million"

10. Death row taco bar
9. Two words: Alberto VO5
8. Hire staff to write some more great zingers like this . . .
7. Always wanted to see Branson
6. Spend a weekend at his hunting lodge with Hank Williams, Jr.
5. $8.5 million on campaign buttons; $8.5 million on bumper stickers
4. Health care for all Texans . . . I'm totally messing with you
3. Shut up or he'll execute you
2. Get a fabulous makeover from Michele O'Bachmann's husband
1. Buy lunch for Chris Christie

I was wondering how the spirit from the Arab Spring would manifest in the US, and the anti-corporate greed demonstrations on Wall Street and in other cities seem to be it. If nothing else, it lets us old farts know that the younger generation hasn't all gone bankrupt and has some morals... Interesting that the most common way that the repressive regimes in Syria, Yemen, China, and New York all respond with violence to their unarmed citizens camping out on the streets. If the protests were to happen in places like Ohio, Georgia, or South Carolina, the state legislatures would already be drafting legislation making such protests a violation against our capitalist way of life, and punishable by time in jail, a treasonable offense similar to what was passed in Russia, Georgia, Iran, and Tunisia...

Does anyone expect that the CEO's of Wall Street will break down and agree to stop their predatory habits, or to stop lobbying against the changes that are supposed to make their industry more transparent and honest? Not since they are back making huge salaries. But since they are intertwined with what is going on in Europe right now, there is a good chance that if Europe falls back into a continent wide recession, then so will the US economy, and people will be less comfortable with a CEO making over $26 million that year...

Is anyone surprised that Sarah Palin officially has said that she is not running for President? She has been making more than enough money with her books, reality television show, speaking fees, and being a pundit on FOX News, she doesn't want to start spending lots of money and going through the grind of raising enough money that a national election would entail. Plus, she really is crazier-than-batshit, a mean and vindictive person who would abuse the position of President to get back at all of her detractors, real and imagined... What is surprising is that Herman Cain is currently leading in the polls. He's taking a page from Sarah's playbook, to stop campaigning and go on a book tour for a month, try and make some more personal money to refurbish what he's had to lay out so far. Herman may be forced out of the running if the public finds out how much of a temper he has. So far, he's been able to deflect answering uncomfortable questions by saying well, we have differences of opinions, so let's move on... Don't ask embarrassing things like who are the economists that came up with his 9-9-9 flat tax scheme (hint, turn those nines over into sixes) or why he won't disclose their names, so let's move on... Once he starts being called on the outrageous claims he makes as the Black Walnut, he will be seen as the fringe candidate he really is, wackier than Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann combined...

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health went through the data for all 1,802,029 Medicare recipients who were 65 and older, who died in 2008. They found that an alarming number, one in three,  people had surgery during the last year of their lives. One in five had surgery during their last month of life, and one in ten had surgery during their last week of life.

The implication here is that our nation is filled with greedy surgeons who perform unnecessary surgeries, knowing that their patients may die instead of recover from those surgeries? All for the sake of the Medicare fees? The researchers were shocked at the amount of surgeries they found, nobody asked why there hasn't been any earlier looking at surgical data or any oversight by Medicare itself. Hopefully, some kind of change will come from this, but I won't hold my breath.

My father was one of those people who had surgery and died within the week afterwards. He had last stage COPD, but had survived a couple of years longer than they thought he would. His doctor referred him to a surgeon, who said that he might be able to fix it so he could breathe better, and it was considered as a minor form of surgery, he would walk out within a couple hours afterwards. Unfortunately, their are more patients who don't survive the anesthesia than the surgery itself, my father didn't regain consciousness until sometime the next afternoon.

My father was kept in intensive care for three days afterwards, then two more days on a regular ward. I wanted my father transferred to a nursing home, but my younger brother said that he could take care of him better, because all my father wanted was to go home. Unfortunately, my brother, who is  sociopath, won out and took my father home with him. My father died ten hours after he was released.

Needless to say, I'm still angry over my father's death. I'm angry at his regular physician, who seemed to not cared whether he lived or died once he was diagnosed with COPD. I'm angry at the surgeon who convinced my father that surgery would be beneficial to him, instead of leaving him alone and letting him live for another few months or couple years more. I'm angry at the anesthesiologist, who didn't seem to take my father's state of health into consideration when he administered his drugs. I'm angry at the doctors in the hospital who released my father prematurely. And I'm angry at my younger brother, who has been involved with the deaths of my mother and our youngest brother, as well as making threats towards myself... As the woman at the mortuary told me, it's far too easy to commit murder and get away with it in the state of California...