Trying to find a reason

I'm sorry I don't have a link to a story to have you read instead. This happened to me. Today. In the morning. On the way to BART to travel to get my medication at Costco.

You see, the medication thing has been a drama that should have a thread of its own. It involves all sorts of things like lack of health care, the incivility of dealing with Kaiser Permanente, the civility that exists in dark corners of Kaiser Permanente, and how come a pharmacy can't communicate with a hospital without adding all sorts of extra drama. Well, that was taken care of, and I was on my way to get my medication when I turned the corner of the main street to walk up the stairs that leads to South Hayward BART.

There were three African American young men sitting on the stairwell railing when I turned the corner (you really don't get a warning...you turn the corner and you're there). Before I could even acknowledge them, the first of them stepped forward and clocked me. I mean really hard. I've taken some pretty hard hits in my time, but this came from nowhere like Mike Tyson finally found an ear he hadn't bitten yet. Next thing I knew, the three of them were on top of me beating the living **** out of me. No kidding. I can hold my own with the best of them, but this was the first beat down I ever had where I got in ZERO hits in response. This continued on for about two minutes as they pretty much robbed me blind. I mean that figuratively because they took my glasses, smashing them as they did so. I didn't have much of value other than my iPod Touch, but they ripped that out of my ear (literally ripping the cord as I kept trying to fight them off). Basically, my fight consisted of making sure I wasn't killed rather than actually trying to get in a lick or two of my own. I'll be honest but most people I know would be in the hospital right now after what I went through.

Then they ran. I stumbled back up, realizing I couldn't see **** because of my lack of glasses. Finally, I realized I needed to get to the BART station and report this. Other people had watched them run by and after the danger was gone, they were nice enough to report that they had seen these guys run by them with my bag and belongings.

So, I spent the next half hour with BART police debating with Hayward Police as to who had jurisdiction over the crime. Never mind the bleeding veteran. Jurisdiction was a conversation that required no less than ten police officers. No one was actually looking for the suspects. They wanted to know who had to write up the report. But as I say this, I will admit that even with that complaint, they were friendly and cordial to me, so this isn't a miff against the police in any way. Just one of those legospaceman rants.

The sad thing is: I used to feel pretty safe on this path to BART. I only live about five blocks from BART. Now, I don't feel safe at all. My main concern is that I'm going to do what comes naturally and start carrying a knife with me, or something like that, and I'm going to take out one or more of these guys next time it happens, which knowing my luck will land me in prison for a good part of what's left of the rest of my life. But I don't know what else to do. I don't perceive getting any protection from the police. I can try fending them off hand to hand, but these guys were smart and knew EXACTLY when to ambush me (or anyone else for that matter). I doubt there's ever going to be a fair fight, which brings me back to the obvious again.

So, now that the incident is over, let's go back to the original question. Three young black men ambushed a white guy. Is this a racial thing? Is this a societal thing? How do we stop this sort of thing from happening to more people? More police? More education? What drives me nuts is that I don't think anyone, and I mean ANYONE is trying to solve this type of situation. Oh, don't get me wrong. Politicians are building careers on talking about it, and sheriffs are cementing their careers by talking about how they'll eradicate something that they never seem to eradicate. But what is there we can do aside from take the law into your own hands?

Oh, by the way, I wasn't kidding about what I said on most people probably being in the hospital after this. I didn't get out of it unscathed. Lots of blood and let's just say that I wouldn't be surprised if I have a concussion as my head feels like a jackhammer just went through it.

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Health Care Is Only A Dream Away

Health care is all the rage in the news these days. President Obama's health care plan is going to revitalize the entire country. Complacent doctors say it will destroy the very foundation of medicine in the country, causing all of us to become troglodytes who will have to turn to witch doctors to be cured if "socialized medicine" gets passed in this country. Love it. Hate it. Whatever. Everyone seems to have an opinion, and in reality, no one really cares.

What am I talking about? Well, it's one of those issues that people have a stake in because it's political. It defines your party identity, so people take sides based on what they believe in. Most people arguing, and most people who are being listened to, are people who already have health care, and they don't need it. It won't affect them; it will affect those who really have no voice, and to be honest, no one really wants to listen to them in the first place.

Last time we tried to have universal health care, or something like it, we ran into the personal story defense, which is one of those fake defenses that makes people think the sky is falling based on one or two examples. In other words, if ONE person is affected negatively, then they can throw all sorts of fear tactics around and the people will blindly turn out against it. That's what happened with the Harry and Louise defense. Basically, what happened was this fictitious husband and wife were played by two actors, and the Republican Party made them pretend that they were going to be completely destroyed by President Clinton's health care initiative. The plan failed and has been forever linked with the failure that is Hillary Clinton, even though she tried to put that behind her as she ran for president unsuccessfully.

Well, that same sort of thing is happening again, but it's turning into more noise than anything else. And what people don't realize is the true fear of universal health care this time around is that the new program may not actually do anything different than what we're already doing. In other words, we may spend billions of dollars, but in the end we'll have a little bit of the same of what we already have. Those in the middle, people like me, will still have no health care, and the only ones that qualify will be those with steady jobs or those who have figured out how to game the system, something most of us in the lower middle class have never been able to do.

So what about me? Why am I talking about this as if I'm in this strange category of people who have no health care? And why should someone like me really matter?

Well, if you watch the way events will unfold, people like me are unimportant, and no one really does care. I don't say that to seek sympathy, but to pass on that people do not care for those who shouldn't be in a bad situation; like a lot of our class arguments, people blame those who don't end up coming out on top, almost as if it is a failing in their own abilities that they are starving to death and dying from lack of proper medical care in the country that has been the shining beacon for so many others before in the past.

Yes, I'm one of those without health care. How did I get there? Well, I had health care when I was working full time for a hospital system. Then I went back to school to do graduate school, to be able to better myself and get a step up in the academic community. So I had health care while going to school. After school, I took a job in South Korea where I still had access to health care (universal health care in South Korea). Then things turned bad. The job I had stopped paying me, and my only recourse was to return to the United States without employment. Since then, I've been unable to find a job, so the little bit of money I had accumulated is slowly dwindling, and my lack of health care has started to make itself known by the fact that I take a number of medications for an ailment that is part of my medical history.

Not having health care is a very interesting dilemma to be in. It is like being one of those turtles that has overturned itself and cannot get back up on its feet again. You keep thrashing over and over again, hoping somehow that someone will notice you're there thrashing, but people just point and stare, sometimes commenting on how bad it is that the turtle has fallen on its shell and can't get up again. This continues until the turtle eventually dies of starvation because it can never make itself upright again.

That's how being without a job and health care is for someone that isn't comfortable being without a job and health care. I walked to BART today to catch a bus that leaves from there, and while I was there, I was accosted by no less than five beggars, asking me for money. That is something I told myself long ago that I would never do, and the activity disgusts me, but at the same time I'm starting to see these people as possibly smarter than I am. I mean, they're not pretending that they're going to turn things around; they realize they're screwed, and they just stand there at the BART station asking people for money. They gave up. And they're probably making more money per day than I stand a chance to anytime in the very near future. So who is really the foolish one here?

I went to Kaiser today because they used to be my old health care provider. It's amazing how unhelpful the system is when you're no longer one of the "members". All I really needed was a copy of my prescriptions so I could at least find out what medications I've been taking (unfortunately, the prescription information of mine was lost in transit, along with my military DD214 (proof I served) and tons of personal paperwork that might make this whole situation a bit easier). Member services at Kaiser is annoyingly rude to most of its members and people like me. They seem to see everyone that shows up as an antagonist, so the attitude is immediately one of hostility (you could sense it when the one woman at her desk kept lecturing people for not waiting until she said she was ready to see the next person...imagine being spoken to like a prisoner at a detention facility, and you get the impression of how it feels to be in need of information from that type of a gatekeeper).

This ended up putting me into the emergency room of Kaiser because that's the only place that will see you if you're not a member. And they're not like other emergency rooms. They want money, and lots of it. I'm not talking about small amounts of money. They wanted astronomical figures. An example is drugs. The drugs that I take cost about $600 for a month's supply from Kaiser Permanente. The same drugs for the same period of time, bought from Costco, would cost me $37.50. But that's where the fun begins, because just getting the prescription from Kaiser to Costco was one of the quests that would have made the computer game Myst proud (for those who do not know...as one of the first real puzzle games, that game confused the crap out of tons of computer players when it was first released, causing more than one computer screen to end up with a broken beer bottle sticking out of it by the end of the night).

Anyway, why am I talking about all of this? Well, the argument for universal health care is waging in Congress right now, and in the end the chances are pretty good that nothing is going to come of it. Oh, they'll probably pass something, but it will be what's called feel good legislation, where they can claim victory without actually doing anything. The taxpayers will spend many billions of dollars, a few people will get outrageously more wealthier than they already are, and nothing will change. Why is this? Well, because people in Congress already have the greatest health care you can possibly get. And they get it for life. They don't need it. So why should they care? Sure, it sounds good to seem like you care, but at the end of the day when they're arguing numbers, what they care about is getting re-elected and becoming more powerful. Those of us slipping through the cracks don't matter. We're irrelevant. We can't die fast enough.

So, here's where I say something that hopefully will get you to think (I am addressing this to the two stuffed animals of mine who make up the readership of my blog). There is massive dissatisfaction with the government today by more and more people are finding themselves out of work and losing some of the basics of everyday life, like health coverage. There is a tipping point to where the amount of people falling out of the system start to become opponents of the system. We're not there yet, but we're moving there. And the problem with that is, and the problem that has ALWAYS caused, is that when this antipathy starts to turn to anger, there's no warning. Nor is there any smart seer on a hill somewhere with his or her pulse on the attitude of these people. When they rise up, they sweep pretty much everything out of their way as a movement that takes a life of its own. We've seen it happen so many times in the proto-modern times, and we've started to see it happen a lot more since the post-communist world where groups of people have become important variables that cannot be tracked until they've already done their damage.

Part of the problem with Obama is that he was seen as some kind of messiah, a response to what was considered a horrific period for the liberal ideas of mainstream America. Well, he's starting to show himself to be as regular as any other person, and that momentum that brought him to power is starting to show lots of kinks in the armor. People said they wanted change, but that's not what they really wanted. They wanted prosperity as part of a desire for accountability. They're receiving neither, and nothing indicates that anything being done today is going to lead to just that. I wish I was wrong, but I'm not.

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Where Do They Go From Here?

L.A. County raids homeless camp under 10 Freeway

Okay, the article is pretty simple. LA County has invaded a homeless camp that is under one of their freeways. The point of the article indicates that Caltrans has been having trouble keeping the homeless out of the area, so the police raided it, and they're attempting to keep the homeless from returning to that particular area.

This is one of those things that often bothers me, as I'm apt to want to discuss the homeless and poverty, two similar issues that are often treated as targets of the day issues that quickly go away when the media has a more pressing story, like a wardrobe malfunction or a Britney Spears meltdown of some sorts.

This is the sort of thing that always fascinates me because once they clear this sort of place out and have no intentions of offering them alternative housing, which you know they won't, where do they go? What are they supposed to do now? These are the castoffs of human society who found a place where society didn't have to concern themselves with them. Now, they don't even have that. So, what's next? City and county programs have less and less money to house these people or to even offer them the medical and psychological help they probably need. Police are only interested in moving them along. City officials care nothing about them because they rarely participate as voters and have no political clout whatsoever. Charities have enough trouble meeting their own ends right now that they can't afford a new demographic to have to take care of.

So, after we "clean it up", what happens to them next? Do they become criminals and then become part of the criminal justice system? Do they give up on everything and commit suicide, so hopefully they are no longer on anyone's radar to have to take care of? Do they join the homeless on the streets, begging for money on corners and in train stations? Even more important: Does anyone even care?

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Way overdue for an update

I realize it has been over a month now since I last added an entry, so I figured I'd just kind of recap what's going on.

1. No real job so far on the horizon. I've been trying, and I have not been very successful. I keep ending up as the "second choice" of colleges, but never the first choice. San Francisco State went with one person over me. Casper College went with the other person over me. Pacific University in Oregon went with the other person over me. They often call me to tell me that they wished they could have chosen me, but in the end, they didn't choose me. My prospects are looking really dim these days. I almost got Hillsdale College, and I probably would have got it, but I had problems with my flight, so they ended up having to give it to one of the other people who actually showed up for the official interview in Michigan. I don't really know what to do at this point. I'm not finding any success, and it's almost August now.

2. Working temporarily. I'm working for EF, which is an English teaching school that works through the University of Phoenix. It is one of those jobs that lasts only a month, and by the end of this week, I'll be completely unemployed again. Before that, I was working a temporary month or so job with the county as an election trainer. That, too, ended, so little by little my little gigs are drying up.

3. Overseas might be my only hope. I'm currently looking into working in South Korea, teaching English or debate. We'll see how that turns out.

4. My computer stopped working last week. Apparently, my power supply decided to stop working, or blew itself out. I had to take my computer to a shop to actually get it repaired. To be honest, even though I've been a computer technician before, I misdiagnosed my own computer and didn't realize it was something as simple as a bad power supply. So, I replaced that and added another gig of ram to my computer (bringing it up to 3 gigs of ram). Cost me $200 that I didn't really have, but what can I say?

5. My writing hasn't been going very well lately. I am at one of those stages in my writing where I have a novel formulating in my head, but it's not ready to come out yet. This happens to me a lot with my novels. Unfortunately, it leaves me wanting to write, but not feeling comfortable enough to write yet. I have a working title of this next project that seems to be around the corner, entitled: She Talks to Penguins. Believe it or not, it's actually a very serious project, and something a bit different from what I've tried to tackle in the past. Considering I've tackled adventure, suspense, science fiction, fantasy, epic comedy and romance, this is more of a slice of life kind of novel, which I never actually imagined I would be writing. I guess it is more consistent with some of my recent work, which included my short story "Simple Girl" that took second place from the Stockton Arts Commission this summer; for the record, my romance story, "Buried Memories," took first place from the Stockton Arts Commission the year before. "Simple Girl" was more of a moralistic type of story about a stereotyped girl who everyone seems to ridicule behind her back, but in the end she was really the wisest character in the story.

6. Relationships. None. That's never really changed. I had a conversation with Kat yesterday when we went out for a beer at BJ's, and we talked about that same subject. I guess I don't really know what it is I'm looking for these days. In the past, I was involved with some pretty strange women, dating anything from a crazy girl from Hong Kong who desired to kill everyone in the human race, fondly referring to me in a loving manner as "the last victim"; a professional dominatrix who didn't understand why men found her so intimidating; a seriously toxic semi-supermodel who used to leave the table after we eat to vomit up everything she just chowed down; several best friends with whom I may have or may not have been actually dating at the time (just couldn't figure it out and blatantly asking just gave me vague replies); a couple of 18-20 year olds, who put out airs that they were much more mature for their age until we started dating and then suddenly they were really 18-20 year olds in maturity as well; and well, a couple of others that were great but just weren't either looking for me, or not there when I was finally looking for them.

So, we somewhat concluded, or at least I did, that I'm looking for someone intelligent who can stimulate me intellectually. I don't find myself looking for the same thing other men are looking for. Sure, an attractive woman is great, and I'll spend an eternity looking at a beautiful woman (Shania Twain, I'm looking at you right now...), but there has to be more to it than that. And that's so hard to find because I think too many women are socially stigmatized by what other men are seeking that they're all convinced that most men are interested in them only for sex. And that bad disposition gets reinforced by bad choices they make in trying to find that guy who is "just like you but not you".

There have been a couple of women who have come along but they're just not interested in me, or in a relationship at the moment. Some of them have been perfect for me, and I felt I would be perfect for them. But those relationships have remained strictly friendships because they're seeking someone else, even though I sometimes suspect that they don't know what they're seeking either. What's funny is that no matter where I go, and I do go numerous places in my life, I always end up with at least one or two really close female friends who are never interested in anything beyond friendship. And my jury is still out as to whether or not that is a good or a bad thing.

7. The Shoulder. It still hurts. I can barely move my arm still, and the pain has actually spread to my right shoulder as well, so I have little full mobility, and it hurts when I try to stretch my arms behind my back, like when I try to put a belt on my pants. With that said, the pain has become lessened somewhat, and I do feel that I've been able to get a bit more sleep at night than I use to. I am heading in for a surgery consultation this afternoon, and then in August I'll actually have the surgery itself, where they stretch the shoulder into a position and then supposedly, that "fixes" the problem of "frozen shoulder". I'm hoping so because it's been over a year, and this situation has really sucked a lot.

8. Tabula Rasa. It means "clean slate" but it's also the name of the game I've been playing religiously with the spare time that I have every day. It's an online game, like World of Warcraft, but it's so much not like World of Warcraft. And that's what I was seeking: Something NOT World of Warcraft. The premise is that the Earth has been conquered by an alien race called the Thrax (or the Bane), and we've regrouped on other planets where we're trying to win back our freedom from Bane oppression. It's so much different than other games I've played, and it actually feels like you accomplish something when you play. Plus, the important thing for me, is that it has a very rich story interwoven into the fabric of the game. That's rare. The game was designed by the creator of Ultima (and Ultima Online), Richard Garriott. Great game. I highly recommend it.

9. The Thesis. My second draft was given to Marlin almost two weeks ago. I haven't heard back on it. It's 115 pages approximately, so I can see why it would take some time to read through and correct it. I'm hoping there's not much more to do, because I really want this over and done with. I've been in school way too long. Plus, I need the stupid degree so I can show that I have something in return for the two years I spent here at the University of the Pacific.

That's pretty much it for now. Wish I had more to add, but that's a mouthful alone.

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Preying on the poor

As many of you may know, times are kind of tough right now financially, so I've been exploring all sorts of alternative methods of survival in hopes of increasing revenue (or starting some) in hopes of making it through the rest of this summer. It hasn't been easy, and I've not been extremely successful, but one thing that it has done is remind me of how vicious other people can be when it comes to taking advantage of those with little to no resources.

Let me move back a bit in the past to orchestrate an event that happened that opened my eyes to this sort of behavior. Years back, I was in really dire financial circumstances after having gotten out of the Army and unable to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. So, I ended up in San Francisco, and I lived in the impoverished area of the Tenderloin District. I was working security guard jobs for extremely limited income (I made too much to qualify for food stamps, but not enough to pay rent, let alone actually buy food). I had a dollar or so one day and decided my best bet was to buy a carton of milk (you could get a quart of milk for 99 cents back then, and that was overpriced). So I went to the normal corner convenient store that was owned by a Korean family. Their 18-19 year old kid was working that day, and I put the 99 cent quart of milk on the counter. The kid looked at this "tax chart" he had that covered the entire main counter and then said: "That will be $1.34." I almost paid it, but then it suddenly dawned on me that 35% is somewhat outrageous in an area that charges 8.5% sales tax. So I asked him why so much. He said "tax". I said that tax is 8.5, not 35 percent. His reaction was to remove the milk from the bag he had put it in, place it to the side and then order me out of his store or he would call the police. So I left.

Fast forward to today, and someone recommended online surveys as a possible way of making money. I suspected there was probably something suspicious about them, but I figured I really had nothing to lose, so I signed up for a few of the ones that appeared to be legit. Well, what I soon discovered is that by signing up for one, they really escalate this into signing you up for every one. Now, I'm probably a member of about every survey site you can possibly imagine.

Now, if you've never crossed into this world of surveys, you might get the mistaken impression (like I did) that these surveys are actually interested in your opinion on things, like products or maybe politics or trends, or whatever. They're not. What they're interested in doing is the infamous foot in the door technique and its many variations. Let me give you an example. Blockbuster Online Rentals is one of the ones that almost every one of these surveys has as one of its "surveys". What the survey will do is promise you anywhere from $15-30 for "completing" the survey on Blockbuster. But what the "survey" actually is has nothing to do with surveying. To complete the survey, you have to sign up for Blockbuster's Online service (the one that charges $9.99 + tax per month to have movies sent to you like the MUCH BETTER company Netflix). Having not completed this "survey" because I can see right through its game, I'm assuming that you would then get $15-30 from the survey company (which all tend to have a "you must earn $100 in surveys before we send you a check" clause to them, although that amount varies from $40 to undetermined amounts).

If you start going through more and more of these "surveys", what they are is an endless stream of "click yes or no" to get more information about more companies that want to separate you from your hard to come by dollars. They aren't really interested in your opinion, but in your business. And quite a few of them that I observed are really scary in what they do.

I'll give you an example from the "medical" surveys that I noticed. I know that our country talks about how we're over-medicated these days, but I went through a number of surveys that practically CREATE ailments within me, even when I'm feeling fine. I've had a headache a week ago, so having connected with that information, I'm put through a bunch of self-diagnosing (it diagnosis me, not the other way around) that eventually end up with some pharmaceutical company offering me a 7 day supply of a drug that they want me to take back to my doctor and TELL her this is what I need. If I have diabetes, they want to give me a free blood sugar monitor, but they can only give it to you if you're on medicare, but if you're not, they will walk you through the process of getting ONTO medicare so that they can run the charge through and "NO ONE" has to fork over any money. Yes, I'm sure it comes from nowhere as the government just has way too much money to shell out for these sorts of unnecessary things. I think you get the picture. In about one day, I had "coupons" for 7 or so day supplies of drugs to medicate my ADHD, which I don't have, my insomnia, which is really caused by the fact that my shoulder is injured, not because I need medication to sleep and suffer from ailments that I can't pronounce, all sorts of diabetic medication that is "ground-breaking" and so "ground-breaking" that no one else in the medical establishment appears to know what it is, and my favorite: I've "qualified for medical trials" on at least five different horrific ailments, which will require me to be put into test groups where I might or might not receive life-saving treatment in a ground breaking study. I think you get the idea.

The problem, for me, is that they are preying on people who generally are at wit's end and don't know where else to turn. Instead of helping them, as they are claiming to do, they are turning their lives into a living hell from which they will never escape. You don't help someone solve his financial burden by offering him ten different credit cards (the other thing these surveys have been doing nonstop) from "banks" I've never heard of before. I mean, come on, when I get a credit card offer from Fred's Bank, there's something really wrong here.

But like poverty itself, I don't expect anyone to care. The people who are targeted here are unimportant to the rest of American society. They are the losers in the game of capitalism, and as long as the fantasy of everyone having an equal chance in this country exists, they will continue to be victims, exploited by those who care only about their own wallets. It's like Hurricane Katrina when it happened. We all saw the pictures and wanted to do something. But no matter how many people DID go and help, there were so many people who saw it as an opportunity and swooped down, doing what they always do. And as we rarely hold them accountable (white collar crime never will be, no matter how much rhetoric we use), that's why it will only continue as perpetrators become more and more blatant in how they do it.

And I think that's sad. But what's that matter. It's not like anyone reads a blog like this anyway.

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