Beware The Velcro Shoes

I was slipping on my sneakers to head the gym this morning.
I keep them tied loosely so they will slide on and off just like a pair of loafers.  I learned this from watching my kids do it (no idea where they learned it) some years ago and it works great, especially if your work involves a lot of air travel. You can just pop those puppies on and off in seconds at both ends of that old airport security line while others are mostly looking for places to sit and tie their laces.

Anyway, I was slipping them on and my pitiful mind briefly flashed on sneakers that close using velcro straps. When I have seen these on others over the years I have felt sorry for those wearing them.  Sort of like; "OK, I am getting so old now I will just buy these things so I won't have to spend all that time bent over trying to tie a damn lace that doesn't want to cooperate with my arthritic (enter "knees, fingers, back" or whatever here)."  I suspect other infirmities of aging apply as well.

So, if you feel this coming on, be advised you can take a pair of regular shoes or sneakers and tie them in your lap, leaving them loose enough to slip on your foot.  You might want to try a few different levels of tightness to get it just right but then you are set. You can just leave the knot in place to slide them off or on anytime you please.  That way, you won't have to wear that velcro badge that says you have some limiting infirmity.  After all, we aging boomers have enough to deal with without that too right?!

I'm sneaky that way and you can be too.

Trump TV

He has already got his fellow sexual predator, Roger Aisles and that Breitbart creep, Bannon lined up.  He also has Sean Hannity in his pocket and will likely bring him on early.

His son-in-law has made inquiries into setting up a network.

He will gladly lose the election so he can focus on his media objective.

He has won enough followers to make his own network a slam dunk.

He will launch and it will make Fox News look like the new liberal front in comparison.

His network will specialize in the spread of fear and hatred that flourishes within unverified internet posts. Fanatics feeling righteous indignation will come crawling out of the woodwork. The result will not be pretty. It will not be a "win-win," just a win and fuhgetabout the other side.

Plug "Trump TV" into your browser and you will get over 50 million hits.

Parasite - "The Road To Hell...

...is paved with good intentions." - This common quote is often attributed to the Cistercian abbot Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – 1153), or at least so says phrases.org.

All right, old Saint Ben probably could not have foreseen just how lasting and applicable that quote could be. For example; moving forward eight hundred and fifty years or so we find ourselves in the late 1960's good old USA when people were deeply concerned about the rapidly rising cost of health care.

Somehow they were able to get the attention of doctors and other providers who promised "voluntary cost containment." That quickly turned out to be totally ineffective so Health Maintenance Organizations surfaced and were made legit by the HMO Act of 1973...signed by none other than Tricky Dick Nixon himself.

The whole premise behind HMO's was based on expert professionals who would use the purchasing power of large numbers of potential patients (enrollees they had signed for health insurance) to negotiate reduced rates from health care providers. Of course, the pro's would retain a certain portion of enrollee payments (premiums) for administrative costs and profits. HMO's caught on fast and, seeing potential for shit-tons of profit, large old indemnity companies like Aetna, Prudential and Blue Cross/Blue Shield bought in big time.

Moving forward again about 13 years to around 1987...I was just finishing a career with the Air Force and had spent half of it as a health care administrator. I was a proud product of a contained (military) health care model and deeply ingrained in a not-for-profit, common ground system that included no distinguishable greed or avarice. It was a great experience but I was ready to move on to new challenges. So, I was interviewing to work in a for-profit hospital system (Hospital Corporation of America), a non profit HMO system (Kaiser Permanente) and a for-profit HMO (Foundation Health then HealthNet now Centene).

I ended up signing with Foundation Health. I was intrigued by the notion of health care cost containment, believing that at some point Americans would demand it, maybe when they were paying say...25 cents of every dollar they earned.

Around that time, I attended a meeting of the American College of Health Care Executives and was in discussion with one of my old pals from grad school, Ron Terry. I asked him his general opinion of HMO's and his response; "I think they are a parasite on the health care system." It turned out Ron was absolutely correct in his assessment but at the time it seemed to be the only viable means to keep health care providers from jacking up costs to the moon. (Yes Vern, I was pretty naive and uninformed.)

Today, HMO administrative salaries drain billions of dollars from the common man's pockets and HMO's are loaded with spikes to impale consumers...spikes such as adverse selection, denial due to pre-existing conditions, over and under utilization, limits on allowable procedures, regular premium hikes that exceed rising provider costs and so on.

Here is what it seems to boil down to...if we let insurers drive the bus, they will take us where they want for whatever price they would like to charge. If we let providers to the driving, they will do the same. It's only human nature folks. So, we need a single-payer system, like Medicare, with full authority to negotiate prices, particularly with big pharmaceutical companies. This means administrative overhead at less than 5% (with no profit) as opposed to HMO overhead that ranges from 20-30% (with profit).  It lets the passengers tell the bus drivers where they want to go and how much they are willing to pay to get there.

Would there be problems with such a system? Of course there will... so we will need a strong consumer watchdog entity but we already have a bunch of those so we would just need to change their mission. Also, all these countries are doing it (single payer that is, or as some would say, "National Health Insurance") and I am sure we can do it better than them if we really want to:

Austria, Belarus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

After all, we are master innovators right (?) and we can cherry pick their best practices!



   

Take A Knee

Last week I replaced the flag that waves
In front of our home
The old one had faded is all
It still had a useful life
But to Julieann and I
It looks better clean and bright
So we did it

Old (New) Glory at the
Nor-Cal Campbell family ranch.

At the same time many in our country were and are upset over Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the playing of our national anthem. Many see it as lack of respect for the flag and our country.

Yet, as he has explained, it is his way of demonstrating his concern over our continuing "oppression of black people and people of color." I would add we are also guilty of oppressing people of different persuasions or cultures and religions. To give more substance to his position, he has agreed to donate a million dollars to communities in need.

In a way I understand and do not quite see his position as disrespectful. I see it instead as a way of respectfully showing concern:

That our country is not whole 
That we are not one people joined by a common cause 
For freedom without oppression 
That we have a lot of work to do

Yes we have a lot of work ahead of us and we have had it since the beginning. We are not born with prejudice and hatred. We are taught... and I believe for many of us it becomes instinctive.

When I was a kid, I believed we would grow up do a better job of governing ourselves, individually and collectively, than our parents. But now I have seen that is not true. We have carried on the traits we were taught. We have passed them on to our children and we need to stop it.

The true correction lies in what we teach our children:

If we do not stop teaching them to hate
If we do not teach them to overcome their fears
If we do not stop preaching prejudice
If we do not teach them the simple "Golden Rule"...

...then all these attitudes will continue as they have since the very first stars and stripes were sewn together in the flag.

So that's my position on it. I spent 24 years in the Air Force to earn that position and I am happy to pass that on to Collin in support of his endeavor.  Take a knee Collin.  I am behind you.

The big PBJ Question

Here is another proverbial 'fork in the road' life often brings and I am asking for your help in choosing.

First; do you put butter on your peanut butter and jelly sandwich? If not...go no further as this question is not applicable to you.

If you do, do you put the butter on one slice of bread, then peanut butter on the other slice and finally, the jelly in the middle? Of course you realize this will cause the jelly to ooze out the sides of the sandwich as you eat it.  But then again, lots of folks consider licking the ooze up a big part of the fun right?  Kind of like controlling a melting ice cream cone.

Got this image off the 'Interweb'
Note excellent ooze factor.

Or, do you prefer putting the butter on one slice and spreading peanut butter right over the top of that?  This leaves you a bare slice for your jelly and the slice absorbs much of it thereby reducing the ooze factor considerably...unless of course you just keep loading it up with jelly so the bread can no longer absorb the excess. Then you have your ooze factor plus a jelly-impregnated slice right?

So, which do you prefer?

(I know, I know...we are deeply immersed in a presidential political cycle so who has time for this trivia right?  But hey, you gotta' 'preserve' your energy so you can make intelligent decisions and what better way to do it than with oozing preserves from a PBJ?!)

Mirror Mirror

Thoughtless people...

Often encountered in numbers including those...

fully mobile yet parking in handicapped spots
(Yes, they have the tag hanging from their visor)

spreading in seats to deny equal space to others

focused on cell phones while ignoring others

who hate; condemning their stereotypes
of race, religion, and persuasion

driving slowly in the hammer lane
(Some just don't know any better)

condemning all on welfare as drug addicted slackers
(Hmmmm...does that also apply to corporate welfare/government subsidies?)

denying equal rights to those
of different gender, race, religion and persuasions

who believe only what they want to believe
without investigating or searching for the truth

I wonder how they really feel about who they see
When they look in the mirror in the morning?
No wait...of course, they don't think about it.

Journeys

"TC's Hog," outrunning the rain on the highway
between Rapid City and Sturgis...

There are chapters in life,
that are much like journeys.
Minor and major.
Depending on your view,
I have two.
Majors that is...

Is there yet another to begin and end?
Airman, consultant and _____?
Or is this the beginning of the end of the road?
Time will tell.
But now sooner rather than later.
Time will not permit another long run.
I'm okay with that.

Walleye

What do they see?
Through those opalescent eyes?
You have to wonder right?!

Lake Frances, Montana is small
More like a really big pond
But oh what a pond
It lies on desolate flat prairie
At the foot of the magnificent Rocky Mountains
And it harbors adventures
You cannot imagine
At first glance

The very first rays of light struck his eyelids
And they opened, alert and prepared

He quietly worked his way
Out of the small RV
So as to not disturb others sleeping

The lake was... early morning still
Smooth as glass
Covered by a cotton ball blanket of thick fog

He gathered his gear, loaded
Then pushed the boat from shore as he
Pulled himself over the side
And securely in

The fog was so thick
He had to work his way
Across the lake
By staying a few feet
From the perimeter shoreline
Taking the radius and not the straight route

Finally, he reached the spot he was looking for
An earthen and clay bank
Several hundred feet long
Dropping gradually into the water
There, at the mud line
The walleye would be searching for food

He dropped his anchor 30 feet off
Tipped his jig with nightcrawler
And cast toward shore

He was the only one on the lake
At that hour and other than his own rustlings
There was no sound...none at all

He was there about an hour
And caught several walleye
Roughly a pound and a half each
At that point, the fog had lifted
And he was able to see well enough
To cruise straight back to the camp site

There, he filleted the fish
In preparation for breakfast
His family was stirring so he enlisted help

On the camp stove...
Filets lightly breaded, salt and peppered and fried in butter
They would feast on them along with fried potatoes with onions
Including toast smeared with jelly
And all chased with fresh, steaming coffee

A family together
On a beautiful morning
When reflected upon
Remains heart warming...

Especially if there's fresh walleye involved.

Memorabilia - or in my case - Schmaltz

"Schmaltz" you say? Yeah I am kind of a gushing sentimentalist. "Memorabilia is just not enough for me. I have to take it one step further...that's where "Schmaltz" comes in.

I mean, my brain seems to automatically focus on the good memories...with few exceptions. Take my office for example. No wait, you wouldn't want to actually take it. Perhaps I should instead say; Consider my office for example. There; that's a lot less risk to you. 

I mean, my office is cluttered with memories; family photos by the dozen's plus Harley Davidson dealer and event pins by the hundreds. Plus, plaques all over the place. I even have "A Pot To Piss In" but that is literally another story.  Then there's the papers and souvenirs of various other forms that sort of round it all out.

So to support my point I took a picture.  I am going to insert it right here and then follow with a detailed (yawn.....) explanation. Here goes:

Numbered Memories - a few of many
(Click the pic and it will get bigger...I hope)

1. Julieann Marie - high school graduation picture, a year before we met at her birthday celebration in a mountain top club.
2. Museum of California poster - saw it on a highway billboard and called the museum to see if they had prints - "yes!" Ordered same.  A couple of years later I would have my own, Harley that is.
3. Two golf club racks made by my Father-in-law Casey Thomas (RIP).  I loved him like my own.  The clubs; antiques I collected while on the road.
4. Tyler Thomas Campbell's first home run ball.  A southpaw specializing in opposite field line drives, he was the finest pure hitter many of us had ever seen and he batted almost .600 in consecutive years to prove it.  
5. A leap of love for music at his band's first album release. Arden Park Roots would go on to enter the Sacramento Music Hall of Fame, release four albums and set attendance records (almost 8,000 in 2016) three years running at Sacramento's Concert's In The Park.
6. Daughter Samantha Marie as a teen at the top of San Francisco's Twin Peaks.
7. Plaques commemorating Arden Park Roots two latest albums; "Pipe Dreams" and "Burning the Midnight Oil."
8. A decorative chopper presented to me by pal of almost 50 years, Dr. Bernard Buecker.  Holds inscription that says; "World's Greatest Author" to honor my book, "Badass" about the Harley Davidson experience.  (Ben has perfect perception by the way.)
9. A cast paw print from Molly Campbell; a beautiful in mind, body and spirit Golden Retriever who gave our family more than 13 wonderful years.  Molly's ashes are in the urn beneath the cast.
10. Two personally hand painted wooden decoys.  First is from Julie Campbell to Tom in '87 and second is from Tom Campbell to his father Francis LeRay Campbell (RIP) in '91.
11. Framed poster made by Samantha Campbell in '95 at age 6.  It reads; "If I were President, I woed make shore that ivrething was fare.  and I woed make shore that ifreone had pec and ckwit. and for kids I'd care."  I had it framed and hung it in my office on American River Drive that year.  I told Samantha I hoped one day she "woed" hang it in her office.

And that's it Doooooooooood.  On just one office wall and this is stuff is plastered all over.  But there's more, much more. More than enough to fill a book or two and I have with "Travel On" and "Badass."  In fact, I would say more than my share, which explains why Julieann contends that I have led a "charmed life."  I say the "charm" is in the wonderful people I've met and the great experiences I've had along the way.

The Addictions

Family...nine members gathered around television making small talk.  Only station that remains mostly neutral in this mixed group is the Food Channel.  It has been on most of the day as various members go in and out of the room.  During pauses in the conversation a couple of them start discussing whether the channel is intended to nurture food addicts.  There seems to be some basis for this.  Later, a related conversation takes place on the family patio where DC and TC, the brothers, are relaxing.

What about food?!
None of these apply to television Vern.

TC; "So we have a food channel right? Maybe we should take an entrepreneurial approach and start a tobacco channel?  Then perhaps a dedicated gun channel, alcohol channel and a drug channel?"

DC; "There's already a gun channel."

TC: "Well that leaves the other three then."

DC; "Maybe we could combine the gun, drug and alchohol chan...no wait, that is regular television."

TC; "Yeah, there are a lot of channels like that."

(Uneasy laughter follows...topic changes)

A later question; "Would Bruce Springsteen have written '57 Channels (And Nothing On) if the Food Channel had been available back then?"

The Shooter

He has yet to go off the deep end. Yet he senses something. He is a terrorist in the making or a mad man yet to go public with his madness. Some would rightfully say he is both.

His fantasies are fueled by opportunity... the chance to arm and armor himself with war making weapons and protective gear. They are accumulating in his trunk, or in his garage, or in his house, or in his storage shed and they are waiting for him to make his final commitment.

Meanwhile, following the latest mass murder, "thoughts and prayers" are shared by all. The public and their elected officials engage in endless debate over the nuances of a constitutional "right" that was penned by representatives over 200 years ago; representatives who could not have foreseen the events, or weapons capabilities of today.

The sentence goes like this:

 
People focus on the "right of the people" rather than the context of the sentence that includes "well regulated." So, the debate continues and drags on while the latest tragedy already begins to fade from the everyday mind. Soon, attention will turn toward other events.

Meanwhile, as I write this, The Shooter prepares for a day he is not certain is coming, a day when his mind will snap and he will forget how pleasant it would be to wake up the next day alive. He will select his targets of opportunity, arm himself with weapons of war and begin. It is certain to happen.

The Constitution says we should regulate them well but we do not. We make assault weapons readily available to virtually anyone. Such is the state of our paranoia and our propensity to take a knee to moneyed interests.

The Shooter still owns us.