I have already told you about my first day in the hospital. And I am sure you realize the hospital staff seemed to be considering keeping me as a permanent fixture or so it appeared. By the end of the first twenty four hours I knew I had to come up with an escape plan. The question was what would work. I walked the halls of the cardiac ward taking in the sights of my fellow patients and pondering how to make my escape. The sights and the place were quite depressing and even disheartening as most everyone on the ward seemed to be depressed. There was no sense or spirit aimed at getting better or even looking forward to recovery. I needed to get out of that place. As I walked past the nurse's station my attending nurse said to me you really look much too healthy to be in here. That was the answer to the plan for my escape. I would work the doctors and staff so they believed I was too healthy to remain in the hospital. Just then the cardiologist popped in to see me. She said I looked fine but I needed to stay until they could run me through a stress test the next day. I would have the test in the morning and then my personal cardiologist would make the plan of action.

The next morning I was up at 6:00 AM I got my self washed and dressed except for a shirt because I was still wearing the monitor. I waited, walked the ward and fretted until 11:30 AM when my cardiologist showed up. We had a brief conversation at which time I showed him I was dressed and ready to go. He enjoyed my enthusiasm and said I will see you down stairs in fifteen minutes. If you do well on the stress test you can go home before you catch something here. The doctor left and I pushed the nurse to get me transport to the test. In twenty minutes I was on the treadmill and doing fine. I spoke to the doctor all the time I walked just to let him know I was good enough to go home. He finally smiled at me and said when the cool down period ends we will get you back upstairs and you can go home. I was so elated that my plan had worked and I was going to escape. It took another hour before I was a free man but I walked out the doors and relaxed on the ride home. The only thing that haunts me is every once in a while I think of those on the ward and hope they found their escape plan.

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I recently spent three days in the hospital. Any thoughts of a vacation that may be in your mind are all wrong. Being hospitalized is the legal equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition. It was a Saturday night and I knew there was something wrong with me. My chest seemed tired and I had palpitations. I took my blood pressure and it was moving about and so was my pulse. Skip a beat then skip two then run a bunch together. It was just not a normal day. After toying with these beats for a few minutes I decided to go to the hospital. The intake was fast and efficient. They just did not want me to die in the lobby. They took my vitals and asked me several times the same information I had provided to them as soon as I had reached the facility.

Now we moved to take blood and set me up for an IV drip and began testing my heart. After about two hours of testing and prodding the doctor said I was going to be stay for a day or two. Another two hours passed and then I was moved to a room. The trip to the room was an excursion of the hospital as the attendant that was transporting me got lost. Mind you, we were only trying to find the second floor cardiac unit and we had started on the first floor. Had I really been ill and unable to navigate for the transport attendant I might still be wandering the halls of the hospital. Once I entered the room it was a battery of all the same questions again. I was finally allowed to go to sleep at four thirty in the morning.

At 6 AM I was awakened to take the first course of medication. Then the EKG and blood pressure were taken and then I was told to go back to sleep. That was about 6:45 AM and before I knew it was 7:30 AM and here was my breakfast. That would be the cycle for the next two days. In between meals, needles, tests and blood pressure I was able to walk around the floor having been fitted with a remote telemetry set to monitor my heart. I knew I was fine but I also knew I was going have to work at making then let me go home. By this point I had had enough of the hospital yet they seemed determined to keep me.

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Just because we have the right to say most anything we want we are not required to do so. There is no law or rule requiring an individual to speak on any subject or in any way about anything. The Fifth Amendment states you have the right to silence. And that means that anything one does say can be used against them in either civil or criminal court for an uncountable number of reasons. By not saying anything the individual decreases the possibility of putting their foot in their mouth. Unfortunately there are those who wish to comment on everything and procede to do so. They have the right to say as they wish but the persons receiving the message also have the right to be angry. There are those individuals who make hurtful and even despicable comments and cannot believe that the receiver of the message would be hurt or enraged by the comments. To speak and comment is our right but there is also a rule to guide us and that rule states; if you can not say something nice do not say anything at all. Good words to live by.

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It has been nine years and we still grieve. There has been much pain and anguish for those lost and it still remains. Today there will be speeches and statements filled with hurt and pain about that day but it will not make the hurt or pain go away. If I could suggest a re-read of the Gettysburg Address, today, as a way to capture the distant pain of the battlefield and the understanding of duty, honor and country that we feel this day.

On this day we must honor our fallen brothers and sisters lost in the cause of America. Not only those who died that day but also those who died to maintain our American way over these past nine years.

We Honor All, We Salute All, and We Will Remember All.



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In case you have not heard BP informed the world the other day that they may not be able to pay out any more money beyond the twenty billion dollars already pledged for the oil spill clean up. They indicated that their coffers would be running quite thin in a year or two making it most probable there would be little money available for additional oil cleanup beyond the amount originally pledged. The issue seems to be that the projected short fall would come about because BP has been banned from participating in new oil leases in the gulf area for the next seven years. With out saying it the statement suggested the pledge was made with the calculation of new oil leases being available to them in the gulf for the foreseeable future. New leases would therefore enabling BP to continue its revenue stream which in turn would fatten the coffers of BP thus enabling them to pay more for the oil clean up if need be. It seems the bottom line is has now become; allow BP to bid for the leases or take a chance on the BP tent folding perhaps sooner than later. I told you so.



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In the New York Metro area there has been a spate of deaths by drowning and they are all young people. They were killed doing things they were not supposed to do such as swimming with out a life guard present or swimming in areas that are posted as non-swimming locations. The public has been up in arms indicating the signs are not enough to keep out the young people. They wish to have fences erected and barriers put in place that would make it difficult to access these spots. The problem with this scenario is that ninety nine percent of the people who go to these sites, they are mostly in park like settings; do not want the hassle of climbing over barriers or even like the fact that they may be fenced out of the site completely.

The no swimming signs mean just that and it is time the parents of these children realize the fault is in their court and is not the responsibility of the parks department, the local city council, or any other group beyond posting signs. These deaths are a terrible tragedy but they were accidents. There was no malice on anyone's part and no foul play. These were simply young people who either did not understand the word "no" or were never trained to heed and respect warning signs posted to indicate danger. Parents are screaming out for change but perhaps it is the parents that must shoulder the blame for not teaching their children and providing them with the tools to properly access each and every situation, sign and condition which may point to danger.

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The newest book by Stephen Hawking reveals his belief that the universe was the outcome of physics in motion not that of a grand deity generally referred to as God. If this is Mr. Hawking's belief I have no trouble with his position because it is a belief. The point is most people are attaching to this nodule of speculation, that he has every right to have, and are touting it as the great revelation based on a truth. The point here is that there is just not enough empirical data to be able to support that statement. What comes of this new enlightenment is unfortunately the potential for those who sit on the fence of religion to use this statement as a platform of pure truth encouraging them to jump off. Such an event would be a great disaster for all the people of all the religions because this would be a substitution of theory for faith.

Faith is difficult to come by and even harder to sustain over time. For many people faith is all they have and to have the rug pulled out from under them, were they to believe these statements are based on proven scientific fact, would damage all the societies of the world. All of our societies are, in one way or another, faith based. Were this opinion provable and true the world would be in great danger. Most societies use a specific, to their religion, but similar version of a general morel guide on which their laws and faith are based. Were that faith to be destroyed, even by the truth, the world and its entire people would be at risk to and from each other. As much as religion is supposedly the most powerful weapon there is, it is faith alone that is the tool that keeps us from destroying each other. To obliterate that faith, even with a truth, is a step which must be considered by everyone in every way because once the leap is made there is no turning back and the future will be based on nothing. When there is nothing to guide us we turn to the two things every human knows which are killing and war. The wrong leap could make us turn the clock back 100,000 years.

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