Haitian man survives in rubble 27 days after quake

CNN has just reported that a man has been pulled from the Haitian rubble 27 days after the mega quake hit!! He appears very thin, and apparently stated that someone in a white coat brought him water several times and then went away! This is a truly miraculous story, which will undoubtedly produce skeptics, and lots of spin ie. maybe he hid in the rubble for 27 days in order to get his own reality tv show! It will be interesting to see what is made of this. I just say...."Thank God...again!

Dr. Murray skips his appointment

The infamous "dr. murray", who accidentally killed Michael Jackson with an anesthetic, is "negotiating" his arrest...I didn't know that we all had that right!!! Do we? Because if that is the case, I would assume there would be a whole lotta people who would "opt out" just as this man seems to be doing!!!

Image is everything I guess, and there appears to be some dispute about how the thing will go down...the staging!! We want handcuffs....well we don't want handcuffs....we want a profile shot...well we would prefer not! I can't get over this!! Talk about ridiculous. In fact, he is going to hold a press conference to advise the media as to his intentions!!!

ARREST THE MAN AND GET IT OVER WITH.

Haiti death toll tops 200,000 as aid anger mounts

Haiti death toll tops 200,000 as aid anger mounts

a lot can happen in 2 weeks, and it feels as if the world is starting to turn it's attention away from the desperate situation in Haiti, with the exception of the 10 Americans arrested for trying to smuggle 33 children across the Haitian border into the Dominican Republic.

The economy continues to struggle, Toyota is in a battle for it's reputation, Virgin Mobile has a flight ready space shuttle just waiting to fly anyone with enough money on a tour of the galaxy...and the Haitian people continue to be hungry; homeless; and dying from the post surgical complications of gangrene in amputated limbs!

The rains will be coming soon. The Haitians will not only get wet....but their makeshift shelters of bed linens on posts will quickly breakdown; The rubble entombing what remains of the "unfound" will wash the fetid remains down the streets, along with the human waste that has been accumulating over the paste several weeks as a result of no "infrastructure" meaning bathrooms. This water will pool in areas that will be used to drink and wash...and we have entered the second phase.

There's no use crying over spilled milk !

You know the old saying "There's no use crying over spilt milk" right? Well after this story you might change your mind....I know I did!

When I first came to live in the "country" I was working as a nurse and got a part time job at a very large, old, hospital, that had been built in the early dinosauric period! It had these tunnels underneath it, that connected all the old buildings together, and also housed the cafeteria, and other things that weren't allowed to function above ground!

The first thing you do when you start a position anywhere is orientation, and I was in the process of this orientation when I came to be working a night shift with one other nurse. Things had been going fairly well that evening, when my nurse counterpart asked me to go down to the cafeteria and bring up some jugs of milk, while she poured the evening meds.

(This sounds so mundane that you're probably about to sign off...but hang in there....you will be rewarded.....)

I was a bit nervous about finding my way there and back, but with some encouragement I set off on my adventure. Through the winding tunnels I went, with the wheels of my little beverage cart rattling loudly and echoing into all the darkest places. It seemed to take years to find the darn cafeteria, but once found, all my anxiety ebbed away, and I felt the thrill of accomplishment...it had not been so bad after all!

There before me stood two huge stainless steel vats of milk (as had been described). So I lifted the valve on the first vat, and out came a cup of milk, followed by 5 or 6 small droplets....a little stream...and then ...nothing. I then move to the second vat of shiny stainless steel, and closely examined it. I lifted the valve, but nothing came out, although I could see the milk teasing me through the clear tube that hung below the valve. Hmmm....what could be different? I was not going back empty handed, only to be sent into "the trenches" again.

After close inspection it seemed that the only difference between vat empty and vat full, was that the transparent tube in vat full has not yet been cut open!...( I am observant if nothing else!!) Anyhoo....I quickly located a large sharp pair of scissors and severed the end of the tube identically to the twin vat tube...and just as I had anticipated the milk began to flow...and flow...and flow!!!I had NOT anticipated this! I had already filled 3 jugs full of milk, and was reaching for other vessels to fill, but they were getting further away from my grasp...you've heard of the land flowing with milk and honey!?...well I was there...minus the honey!Tears rolled down my face and joined with the rivulets of milk that rolled down my neck.

Desperation set in, and I started to shout "help"..."help"...but as I was in fact in a basement room, at the very end of a long tunnel...the result was as expected, there was no help, and I thanked God that it was only milk that I was fighting.

Then it came to me...I must tie the tube off ( had that realization occurred just a few moments prior, I might have cut it differently)...the tying began. If you have ever attempted to tie a hose while it is running then you can begin to imagine the next few minutes of my life. There was milk squirting everywhere...on the ceiling...on the floor...on my face...on my body....I mean EVERYWHERE...at one point I had decided that I would abandon the whole thing and flee, claiming to have no knowledge of the melee that had occurred in the kitchen. But alas I could not do that. Instead I staved the flow of milk, and returned to my unit, much to the surprise of my counterpart nurse, who, as I stepped off the elevator completely SATURATED and dripping milk, asked....."what took you so l..."!!And there the story begins again!

My Dad's the Greatest!

85 years ago today, my Dad was born! He is my Dad, but he is so many other things too...he has been friend to many, a Physician to many, practicing for 60 years. He is a husband and caregiver to my Mother in her failing health...and was a loving son in law to my grandmother (one of the greatest women who ever lived!). He is a father to my sister (younger of course!), and a father/grandfather to all 3 of my "fatherless" boys. He is a golf pro (!) and tennis pro( in the past when he would drag me out of my warm bed at 6:00 a.m. to go and play tennis in the freezing cold...( I think he took particular pleasure in rousing me persistently, when he knew I had been out that Saturday night, undoubtedly up to no good and hungover)... no amount of pleading on my part, seemed to soften his resolve!

When you are young you just see your parents as older people who have, and have had, no other life than the one you have witnessed. As you get older, you start to become curious as to what events have shaped their lives prior to, and even during, your own existence with them. Our culture particularly is less apt to sit and listen to the stories of the past, and we lose so much by not taking that time.

I only learned recently, that when my father was a small boy, he caught scarlet fever, and was sent off to a "sanatorium" which was way out in the middle of the moors of Sheffield, far away from his family. Parents weren't allowed to come in and visit, so they would drive many miles, to stand out in the cold and look at him through a window! He was there for several months, including during Christmas...now how sad is that!

Anyway the point is, he has contributed all sorts of things, in all sorts of areas, and in all sorts of lives, and is most assuredly one of the humblest men I ever known (I think Christ would have to top him... but close!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Dad...sorry I wasn't there to eat cake!

Bullied by God?

On January 12, 2010 at approximately 5:00 p.m. a mega quake hit Haiti, and the tragedy began to unfold, video clip by ghastly video clip, picture by picture, it became horribly clear that we were bearing witness to a historical event in time. Too horrendous to imagine, stories of mass graves, heaped corpses, grief stricken family members, and the final toppling of an infrastructure that was already inadequate to say the least. Then amongst the horror, amazing rescues are heard of...3 days....5 days 1 week...2 weeks...people surviving against all odds...spending their hours praying to God. We have witnessed the Haitian people dancing and singing in the streets, worshipping God in theirt darkest hour! But tonight on Larry King Live, actor and activist Sean Penn starts off by saying "the people of Haiti have been bullied by God for many years"! I am immediately outraged!!! Sean is doing great work in Haiti, and I can see the sadness on his face as he recounts the desperation he is seeing...but....bullied by God? Incredibly, the Haitian People have suffered this disaster with grace and strength. Their circumstances in Haiti are as a direct result of human greed, not theirs but ours.... as it is in all third world countries. If we were doing, and had always been doing, what God calls us to do - loving each other - then these people would not have been living in desperate conditions; in unstable buildings; little food; little money.

God has not bullied the Haitian people, it is us....whenever we turn a blind eye to the poverty and suffering of our brothers and sisters in third world countries we are guilty....when getting a Tim's coffee is more important than feeding a child we are guilty...when we find any excuse we can NOT to invest $30.00 a month on someone's life we are guilty. If anyone deserves God's wrath, it is us...not them.

It is simply easier, and cheaper, to blame God.

Just another day at the mall! Right!!

2:30 p.m.
So here I am, sitting in the hospital, waiting, again! Sometimes I’ll run into someone who I haven’t seen and the inevitable questions begin…How are you? …Fine I say!!!(It would take a century to explain where I’m at so I don’t) and my answer seems deceptive. ` `
I think that before you become ill, you should receive some kind of training, or preparedness exercise, that will give you a fraction of a glimpse of what “being sick” really is, and you have the choice to continue or go back to work! Regular people just do not get this….they all think….okay some…not all… that you are actually entertained by this illness, condition or circumstance. That somehow this is a great vacation from your otherwise mundane life.
Let me tell you being sick, is a lot of work.
It simply amazes me how people get through it, balancing appointments, treatments, side effects, and all the tasks required of all well people. In addition, there is paper work to file with insurance companies, pharmacies, and various government organizations. Most continue to work, until they can no longer handle the chaos…and are probably worse for the wear.
Qualifying for benefits is another adventure best left to the hardest of hearts! The best qualifier is to be dead! Anything above that requires the strictest scrutiny, on a level not far from level orange on the American terrorist threat scale. You think I jest…I do not!
3:25 p.m.
I couldn’t have picked a better day to drive into the city! The forecast was for “light snow”…and sunshine…which is true….there have been a few seconds when the sun broke through the dense dark clouds…but it was still difficult to see inside the whiteouts! I wonder how much longer I’ll be waiting...hopefully it will still be daylight because I hate driving in the dark!!!....Oh great!….my name is finally called….Bye