Doctor NOS

Distracted

2006-07-31T19:18:00.000-07:00

Been distracted from blogging at work and at home, both of which are going great.

So I started a new job and have had some adventures in medicine, but nothing blog worthy on either front.

The world is about the same. This new war seems like the old war, just new faces and dates. Few Americans connect any dots, so don't expect Americans to suddenly 'get' the fact that our failure in Iraq is creating an emerging regional power, Iran, now pushing for destabilization across the region. Our client state, Israel, will fight our enemies by proxy, kill many, solve nothing.

But on the brighter front, I took home a fat bonus, but then reading about various CEO salaries... One man's fat is another man's skinny.

Vacation

2006-06-25T18:05:00.000-07:00

I've been on vacation after the move. It's been pretty great. Caught up with the kids, wife, and some books. I bought Gore's book, which will probably be in lieu of the movie (until Netflix), which is just a picture book, but scary enough. Meanwhile, I plugged away at Diamond's Collapse. This is a scary book.

Mrs. NOS bought Fast Food Nation, which is cool because it shows what people who lack souls do when they win the gamble of fast food business. I'm half reading it. Because Diamond is so thick, the Fast Food book goes down like a biggie shake.

Otherwise summer life is good.

Moved

2006-06-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

Mostly moved. Wow, what a trip. Everything's gone pretty smoothly so far. We packed everything and crated it, shipped the rest in bulk, and got ourselves on an airplane. Tough going. But we made it. As for our stuff, I'm going to assume it's all good.

On the plane ride over there were about 50 military recruits of varying sizes sitting all around us. They got a connection, so one measure of their numbers was how few people were waiting around for bags.

When I say something like "military recruit," the image comes to mind of a big strapping guy with short hair. That must be the after-shot These guys were the before-shot. Sorry, I used the word shot.

Anyway, they were about 18 or 19, clearly traveled in packs of 3 to 5 sub-packs, and gave each other hard times. But boy, were they young. When I was 18, I felt like I was pretty tough. Actually, because I got served alcohol by 19, I must have looked fairly old. These kids, for the most part, did not look like they would be legal for another few years at least.

Wish Bush could have been there to explain why they're going to Iraq.

Moving

2006-06-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

So we're moving. Last night I spent many hours taking things out to a packing crate and now the place is empty. But in a house, empty doesn't mean empty, just devoid of the large stuff. There are still toys, mats, and folding chairs on the floor. The kitchen still has stuff in it.

Uggh. I've moved before, but never with two girls. Oh the headache.

Anyway, we fly out on Saterday.

Great Run

2006-06-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went for a great run. It was 7 miles, or so I'm told, and it went from an undergrad college to a beach, then back up a huge hill. Meanwhile the sun was setting. Lovely. That is all.

Delete

2006-06-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

Today I deleted the email address of one of my mentors who died early of cancer. It was fast, but that wasn't a blessing. Oddly, for a doctor, he must have known the prognosis was grave, yet he fought it all the way to having terrible complications on chemo, including some pretty horrific things involving bowels. When Romeo's buddy gets cut, what does he say? The wound is as deep as a grave, and by tomorrow you will find me a grave man? That's about the size of it.

Knowing that he died was horrible enough. It's been about 3 years since I'd even spoken to him. But to go through my email addresses (I was cleaning e-house anyway) and actually delete his, sending this byte of information into oblivion (or is there a great collection of deleted emails and addresses on another e-plane?) was a terrible thing. Of course, the email itself was only the connection, the portal through which one could speak to this man. Without the man, the portal was dead anyway.

In happier news, I finished a marathon over the weekend under 4 hours. Although I'm slow, I'm steady. And although I'm steady, I'm not all that steady. My split times decresed markedly after mile 21. Now I feel as sore as Jeff Skilling is going to feel on prison day number 2. Walking is a pain, stairs are torture. Is this what it is to be old?

419

2006-05-31T19:31:00.000-07:00

Tried to sell a surfboard. Got a great response:

Am using this medium to notify you of my son's interest in particular brand of surfboard, Hence the need to get in touch with you on the negotiations.Making a check payment now let me know your giving price for the merchandise excluding shipping fare to africa, nigeria preciselly..Shipment will be handled by a shipping agent.
Let me know if its still in good condition and ready to be sold..

E. Molloy

I'm thinking of something like this:

Dear Mr. Molloy,

It takes a caring father to buy their son a '9 foot surfboard.' To be clear, in my part of the US, this means a 9 inch phallic instrument of pleasure, which I'm sure your son told you about since he lives out here and it is common knowledge. I commend you on your open mind and excellent english. Perhaps you could have your son drop by and I could show him how it works. He'll probably want a lesson in 'surfing' which I could also provide at no extra cost. Let me know when he'll show up, I live at: fake address.

Otto.

Advice for Lay and Skilling

2006-05-26T17:12:00.000-07:00

I'm a doctor, never been a prisoner. However, I've taken care of plenty of ex-prisoners, future prisoners, and prisoners. Therefore, I feel I am as able as anyone to give some advice.

First of all, Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling, you done bad. And as bad as you done, you will receive it. My normal advice is to avoid prison at all costs. You guys fucked that one up already by not only breaking the law, but by getting caught. But it is not too late to make a run for it. You have tons of money. A tent in Mongolia beats the hell out of hell. And a boat going nowhere is even better. Granted, you loose your bail money, but from what I've seen, 5 mil is a small price to pay.

So let's say the feds meet you at the dock. Now what? It is called prison.

Here is my advice:

Prepare. Mr. Skilling: look into the mirror. You look like you just swallowed tweety bird. Someone is going to use their penis to wipe off that smirk unless you excercise some control here. Get rid of it. Mr. Lay? You look weak. Sorry, you just look like a pussy. Guys, get hard. Hard in face, hard in mind, hard in body. Lift some weights during appeal so that you are mean and strong. Or at least appear to be.

Upon entering prison, you will be shocked. Do not show this. Do not regard people who yell at you, who taunt you, who throw things at you. Be strong during this time because first impressions go a long way.

Upon the first challenge: someone will try to do something to you. Steal your food, shoes, flick your ear, it doesn't matter. You must immediatly try to hurt that person. Even if that person is 6'7 and 300 lbs of muscle. Because everyone else is watching. If they see you cave in and allow this something to occur with no fight, then you become a target to all of them. There is always an easier target somewhere. Same goes with rape.

Roomates. The odds are actually pretty good that your roomate is going to be stupid, harmless, and addled by drugs - more on that later. Make friends with this person.

In case of a riot, lock yourself in somewhere safe.

Do not get ill, need dental work, or get injured. Prison hospitals are next to morgues without a dividing wall. If things get too much, learn how to fake a seizure.

Do not do drugs while in prison, that gets a lot of people into trouble.

Get God. Good job Mr. Lay, for already latching onto this like a baby onto a nipple. God will not help you in prison, but this god delusion is shared by members of the criminal class and might make you some extra friends you didn't have before. But do not bad mouth Allah.

Use your strength. Sure there are guys in prison who would gut you like fish out of spite, but these are rare, even in jail. Most people in prison are the stupid ones: they got caught, just like you. And most are in jail for drugs related offenses. Putting this together, most prisoners are stupid drug addicts. They need drugs, they like drugs. And you know what? Money buys drugs. Bribes. You guys are still way rich. Spread this around, but don't be too open about it. This is a terrible balance. Because as soon as you start paying protection money, then they will bleed you dry of money. Good thing you have a lot of it.

Do you know how much Guards make? Well let me tell you that they can make more than pediatricians with overtime and they never had to do a residency: up to and over 100K a year. This is not to say that all of them do that well. I know that doesn't seem like a lot to either of you, and you would be correct in thinking that for an extra amount of money, they might actually keep an eye on what goes on in the showers.

OK?

Another thing to consider is to change your names and become black or hispanic or asian and join a gang. Too late for that?

You guys are really fucked, so remember the tent.

Chapter 2-3

2006-05-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

I broke up the first chapter into 2 sections. It was way to long and had a natural break. In real world news, the NY Times has a great article on our failures regarding the Iraqi police force. Some say democrats and liberals continue to bash Bush. I say, reality continues to bash Bush.

Mr. Azure looked at the group.

“This is going to take planning. Nime is very fast, so we need to be fast as well. We need to talk to her for a long time, not just the usual hellos and goodbyes. Does anyone have any ideas?”

Caruso lifted up his faded back petal and said, “I don’t see how you could talk so fast. This Nime speaks quicker than the two little sprouts,” gesturing to Illy and Lilly.

Mrs. Scarlet looked around and said, “Well, that is true. I’ve never heard flowers who speak as quickly as you two dears. You two have the most amazing gift for talking. Must be because you practice all the time. Can you try to speed yourselves up?”

Illy said, “Well, we might be able to. We could see how fast we could be.”

Caruso let out his hoarse laugh that Illy and Lilly didn’t like very much, “Be. Bee. Ha.” Illy said it didn’t take much to amuse the old flower, Lilly said it took nothing.

Mr. Azure just watched. And then he said, “Nime seems to be particularly drawn to you, Mrs. Scarlet. Is it possible for you to make yourself more appealing to her, so that she will stay for longer? Something to bring out your lovely red color even more?”

“Why, Mr. Azure, I don’t know, I mean...” Mrs. Scarlet blushed deeply.

Illy and Lilly gasped loudly, and truth be told, with bitter envy, because when Mrs. Scarlet blushed, her color grew so red she looked as red as a poison berry. Or that’s what Caruso said later. He told them a poison berry bush once grew “A ways down the hill. “Actually a nice bushy fella he was. Hated that his berries were poison, but the red was the warning, see? He’d say, ‘I tried to warn em.’ Just the way he was, poisonous, and there’s no changing what you are, if what you are is poison.”

Nime flew toward the flowers at that moment. Bees do spend some time with the flowers they visit because, as hive creatures, they know the value of good social relations. Nime very much wanted to linger, relax, see and smell the flowers, but the hive always needed more nectar. Quotas were difficult to meet early in the season, and Nime held herself to the highest standards. Overall Nime felt bad about not spending enough time with the flowers, but not nearly bad enough to want to miss a quota.

She knew that the flowers liked having her there; after all, they made nectar for her. She knew their nickname for her, and liked it. Her real name wasn’t really any name at all. To the hive she was Three-Seven-Left-Work-Two-Without, meaning she hatched out of the third section of the hive at seven degrees to the left, and that she was a worker, second class, never given royal jelly as a baby. This was her exact designation, location, and circumstance of her birth and life. It was both more than and less than a name.

She preferred Nime.

When she flew up to the flowers that afternoon she intended to stop and chat. Yesterday, several worker bees saw a wasp, setting the hive abuzz. Various high ranking drones organized soldier bees and the hive’s defenses and lowered nectar quotas. The hive needed information about the wasp’s location and perhaps the flowers knew something.

Nime flew up to the patch as Mr. Azure, the quiet blue flower, said something she couldn’t quite make out. Mrs. Scarlet’s red became Red. The Red captured Nime’s eye and filled her mind. After she landed right on Mrs. Scarlet’s petal, which seemed to glow next to the greenery and dirt, she felt slightly woozy. The pale yellow flowers started talking.

“Hi!” And at the same time the other said, “Wait!” “Wait for just a second!” said one while the other said, “We have something to ask you!”

Nime collected Mrs. Scarlet’s nectar and captured the pollen with her fur. The flowers in this patch made a lovely light and sweet nectar, but not a great deal. “OK. But first, have you seen any wasps? Yellow jackets actually.”

Illy and Lilly’s petals opened wide at that. Mr. Azure answered for them all, “No, we have not, but we do have a matter we would like to discuss.”

“Go ahead. Mind if I watch while you talk?”

Neither Illy nor Lilly stopped talking until the end of their story. By then, Nime was sitting on the ground, watching Mrs. Scarlet’s Red fade to her normal red.

“Well, what can I do? I’m only a bee. I’d like to help you, but I can’t even talk to the tree. I’m too small to fly up to his main trunk and he’s too big to hear me, even if I could.”

The flowers all drooped and looked a bit withered up at that point. Nime gathered up Mr. Azure’s nectar and thought. “Well, you know. I could help actually. You’re on the south side of the tree. You can’t see it, but there’s a north side. It’s the shady side. There’re toadstools that grow right on the tree. At least I think they’re toadstools, mushrooms anyway. Or fungi? They lead all the way up his trunk. Probably they lead all the way up to his ear. I could tell one, then he could tell the next, then the next, and so on, until the last one tells the tree.”

Mr. Azure, “That’s incredible! How did you think of that?”

“Well, that’s how our hive does it. If I see a new flower patch, I’d go back to the hive, and I tell 5 people, then they’d each tell 5, and before you know it, the whole hive knows. What is the tree’s name?”

Caruso spoke, “When he was a little sapling his name was Max. If he gets the message, he’ll help us out. He was a good little sap.” Here he looked at Illy and Lilly. They each thought he was going to look at them like they were not good kids, so were surprised to find Caruso’s droopy face looking at them kindly, but only for an instant. Then his voice became stern, “He’ll help us. He used to be my little big seedling.”

Mr. Azure said, “We need to tell him to move his main south branch to the west by ten degrees. That way we can get the morning sun, and Max won’t lose much sun for himself. I’ve worked it out. So remember the following message: move main south branch west 10 degrees.” Mr. Azure was excited and was about to tell them how he had worked out that plan, but Mrs. Scarlet interrupted, for which Illy, Lilly, and Nime were grateful.

“Well, we have to make it nicer than that, don’t we? We have to say please, don’t we? Otherwise we’ll be thought of as rude. How about, ‘Dear sir, the flowers below are getting no sun. Please move your main south branch ten degrees to the west. This will uncover the flower’s morning sun, thank you.’”

“And Caruso says hi!” Shouted Caruso.

Nime asked, “Is that OK? OK with everyone?”

They barely had time to answer, and she buzzed off.

The GOP's Got Priorities!

2006-05-18T11:39:00.000-07:00

It's hard to be a repub in Washington these days. Scandals of Jack A-off, HUD secretary, Duke, wiretaps, CIA director cronyism, rising debt, inflation fears, Iraq, borders, entitlement spending, Katrina, war on science, etc are draining. Must be hard going to work when work is where you hurt America on all fronts.

When all is going so poorly for America, it is time for the GOP to rise up, and fix what needs to be fixed. And out of all that needs to be fixed, what America needs to be fixed at this moment is gay marriage.

Good to know we have the GOP looking out for us! What a good use of their time. Of course, with one move, the GOP can distract attention from all failings to the gay threat and pander to the religiomaniacs. Sweet.

Back to Bush

2006-05-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

NSA wiretaps reminds me of my own preface. At first there is balance, as in checks and balances between subsections of the government, and all live in harmony. And then comes a situation that appears like it is balanced, but hides a secret imbalance. And then there's the fall.

Just like that, there may be evidence of a fall. We will see. The NSA thing is scary enough, but if the government is actually looking specifically at Dana Priest's phone records, then we are past harmony.

Read the fringe and disturbing opinions that are posted there. I find these comments only slightly less disturbing than the content of the post.

I posted myself. Essentially, Bush has turned America into a country with which I am not familiar. These posters do not share what I consider one of the chief American values, found in our bill of rights, of freedom of the press. One writes, "This only helps our enemies and right now I believe ABC news is an enemy of the US."

If anyone doesn't like the behavior of the free press (personally, I think they're finally waking up and they've been asleep over the last 5 years) in this country, then perhaps they would like a country that has no free press. North Korea and Iran are two that come to mind. Enjoy the move.

Stay tuned to this story. Bush is our Nixon.

Chapter 1

2006-05-13T11:53:00.000-07:00

I didn't revise this very much.

Chapter 1.

Hillary wasn’t her real name, although it was her given name. Instead, everyone in the patch called her Illy. This was not to be confused with her sister, Lilly, who’s not real name was Lillian.

Lilly and Illy were sister flowers. They had only just sprouted that spring, but in that time they spent so much time next to each other, talking and gossiping, giggling and laughing, that their roots grew entangled. Even above stem level it was difficult to tell exactly where one started and the other began. Sometimes they even spoke for each other, but they did not tolerate any other flower in the patch ever confusing them.

“I’m not Illy,” Lilly would say.

“I’m not Lilly,” Illy then echoed. Their voices sounded the same, especially in indignation.

“Lilly is a brighter shade of yellow, just by a hint,” Illy would say. And to that, Lilly would say, with a great deal of both exasperation and satisfaction, “Illy has a lovely yellow rim around her petals that you can see best on that one.” Illy wagged her petal with the slight yellow trim back and forth, admiring the way the shadow played off it. That was Illy’s favorite petal. Illy would tell the rest of the flowers that Lilly’s cup was slightly deeper than hers, to which Lilly would say that Illy’s petals were slightly rounder than hers. This could go on a long time because with each turn, Illy loved Lilly more and Lilly loved Illy more, and when that happens you don’t want to stop.

Much like you, the other flowers in the patch found it very confusing.

Caruso, who bloomed for many seasons past, said, “Oh, will you two sprouts just knock it off. You look the same to me. Always have and probably always will. Some of us were here when the tree was just your size. And we’d have been better off if we would have nipped him in the bud as well.”

Neither Illy nor Lilly particularly cared for Caruso at these times, but they always adored the other two flowers in the patch, Mrs. Scarlet and Mr. Azure.

Mrs. Scarlet did try her best to tell them apart, and would be terribly sorry when she got them confused. She would usually say, “Oh, you poor dears. I am sorry. So very sorry. It looks like I did it again. Now, you are Illy, and you have the brightest green green leaves and perfect petal position. And Lilly, your stem looks like it is as straight as, well I do not know what it looks as straight as, but anything else that looks straight, doesn’t look as straight, and your stamens are as long as they are elegant.”

To this, the two would blush and giggle, waving their long, elegant stamens about. Later they would compare their green leaves and straight stems to the others in the patch and feel very fine.

Each thought the world of Mrs. Scarlet, and each envied her color. Her red was of the fullest shade. It was a pure red, with not a hint of an adulterating yellow, green, or blue. At the base of each of her petals, Mrs. Scarlet had a bright yellow dot, as if left there by dew. When combined, each yellow dot formed a larger circle, perfectly surrounding her center. She had many petals, each one slightly overlapping with its neighbor, giving an impression of both fullness and delicacy.

Mr. Azure did not address Illy or Lilly by name, so seldom got them confused. The former fact was lost on Illy and Lilly, the other was a subject of great discussion. Mr. Azure seldom spoke to them at all. In fact, he rarely spoke to anyone in the patch. He usually watched the tree above them.

Mr. Azure was a simple and flat flower, and in his basic anatomy resembled Illy and Lilly. He had only 5 petals, the largest pointing down. The lower petal had a lovely central pallor that seemed to catch the reflection of the top petals, highlighting their perfect symmetry.

Both Illy and Lilly liked Mr. Azure principally because of his blue color. His petals were so blue that they seemed to have added depth and mass, even though they were as thin as the wings of a butterfly. The blue petals changed shades over the day, deepening and darkening. Because Mr. Azure hardly ever spoke, he never bothered Illy and Lilly while they watched his petals changing, which was something the girls often did.

Illy would say to Lilly, “Did you –”

To which Lilly would cut in, “see that?” Just at a moment when Mr. Azure’s blue became bluer than seemed possible.

His petals also changed as he bloomed from bud to full flower. And so every day he seemed a riper blue than the day before.

Mrs. Scarlet told them that Mr. Azure would become a deeper blue day by day until he began to go to seed, which was something that Illy and Lilly had not done before. Mr. Caruso told them the stories about going to seed, and also about the Mother, the Balance and the Harmony, and the seeds that brought need.

Both Illy and Lilly knew their seeds were also pale imitations, and would not entirely consume them, but the thought of going to seed frightened them. Shortly they would loose their petals, then grow monstrous seed pods, dry out, and then retreat into their own seed pod, deep in the ground where they would stay all winter, sleeping.

As it was now, Illy and Lilly barely ever slept. There was always something going on. And after something went on, there was that something to talk about. And after that, then they could always talk to Ms. Scarlet, or watch the blueness of Mr. Azure change as he silently watched the tree, or bother Caruso to tell them stories about winter.

Mr. Caruso had very good stories, which made him tolerable.

“One winter day I was sleeping, which is something you two will be doing quite a lot of come winter, and it wouldn’t do you any harm to do more of it now, so that the rest of us wouldn’t have to listen to you all the time. Yimmering and yammering. Oh so blue this, oh so blue that.”

Those were exactly the times when Illy and Lilly didn’t particularly care for Caruso. Each glanced at Mr. Azure, but if he heard, he gave no sign.

“So anyway. I was sleeping. During winter, sleep is a long thing, but it is also a light thing. You’re always just a second from getting up if something happens and just a second from falling deep into sleep if it doesn’t.

“That’s when Something happened. And it got me up, but I didn’t know what that Something was. It was a big Something though. On the ground. Standing on the ground I mean. Because then I heard that Something again.”

Lilly couldn’t stand it, “was it a rabbit?” Rabbits were very ferocious creatures. Caruso flatly refused to tell them any rabbit stories until the next season, “at very least, for your own good, and stop asking me!” which was something he told Illy and Lilly almost every day.

”It was a hoof. But it might have been a horn.” His voice dropped to a whisper, but it was such a loud whisper that anyone could hear. “That was the Something. And there was more. I could feel the hoof hit the snow. And start scraping. As it scraped at the snow, it came to me through the cold, hard topsoil. Soil during winter isn’t like it is during the summer. During the summer, it gets nice and loose, and your roots can breath. They can relax somewhat. But during the winter...”

“Caruso!” Illy and Lilly liked to keep Caruso on track. They were neither very diversionary.

“OK, OK. You’ll see. So what I was saying was that I felt that hoof, or horn, scrape the snow. And then scrape the snow again. It felt like it was directly above me. It sounded like thunder, but it felt like it was hitting me right in the face. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. And then I heard something even more terrible. Something I hope you never hear.”

At this, Caruso drifted off. He sort of bent up and his stem became even more crooked while his petals seemed even more disheveled and faded than ever.

“Caruso?” Illy asked. “What did you hear?”

“I heard munching.”

“Munching?” Lilly’s voice trembled slightly. “Munching on what?”

“On the grass.” Caruso answered. “There isn’t much grass out here now, but there used to be plenty. You’d have a tough time of it sometimes. The grass grew so thick it was hard to shoot your stem above grass level every spring. You’d hit air, but you’d still have to clear the grass. Blades of grass are nice to look at, but it is a fact that each one of ‘em does not have a thought in their heads. In fact, they are so stupid that...”

“Caruso!”

“Oh yes. So it was munching. The scraping sound was an animal that scraped away the snow. Once it got down to the snow, I mean, grass, down to the grass, it munched on them.”

“What sort of animal was it?” asked Illy, who was always adding to her already extensive knowledge of animals.

”Well. It was an eater alright. I’d guess it was a giraffalo. That, or a buffazille.”

“A buffazille!”

“A buffazille has a great big hoof on its toes and nose, so it might have been the buffazille’s nose that I heard, scraping against the cold ground. A giraffalo has two tusks that jut out of its jaw like wooden stamens. Then again, one must always consider...”

“It was probably a deer.”

Everyone turned. Mrs. Scarlet, who had been dozing, woke with a start and looked at Mr Azure. He was already looking back at the tree when Lilly asked, “I’m sorry Mr. Azure, but what did you say?”

Rather regretfully, as though he were very sorry to have spoken at all, he turned from the tree, down to the others, “It was most likely a deer. Deer come through here quite often, actually, over the winter. We don’t see much of them now because we live off their summer trails and bedding areas. They have hooves on their feet. They dig through snow to uncover grass.” He gave an apologetic glance to Illy and Lilly, “which they eat.”

Illy and Lilly pretended they didn’t mind. If they pretended hard enough, it almost made it true.

Illy asked, “Mr. Azure, why do you spend so much time looking at the tree?”

Mr. Azure looked up at the tree again. When he looked down, he did so like he was pushing a root under a rock, slowly. “Because we are in danger. We have a problem. I’m trying to solve it.”

Lilly said, “I don’t understand.” She said it like it was a question.

No flowers spoke. Mr. Azure turned a noticeably darker blue until Caruso said, “Well, you might as well tell them. They’re going to have to know.”

Mr. Azure spoke slowly, so he wouldn’t have to repeat anything, “I don’t want to alarm you, but Mr. Caruso is correct. You may as well know. After all, we are in this together. All of us, all five of us, have a problem. We are in danger. We are in so much danger that I believe we must solve our problem if we ever want to bloom again.”

At this, Illy and Lilly gave little gasps. Of the two, Lilly would later say she was more particularly horrified, having become so fond of being in full bloom over the spring that she was already looking forward to next year’s blooming, when she thought her color would come in at a more vivid yellow. Illy would silently half agree, because although she believed she was equally if not more horrified, she did agree that her own yellow was currently much more vivid than Lilly’s.

Caruso looked saddened and even more wilted around the tips of his leaves. “You’d better explain.” He muttered to himself, but no-one could hear him clearly, so no-one paid him any mind.

Mr. Azure prepared his explanation ever since he recognized the problem over the winter. He remembered winter fondly. Within his seed husk, deep within the earth, he could doze and think, without the constant bother of the other flowers. Nor did he have to consider the ever present threat of rabbits, caterpillars, and aphids. Yes, winter was a fine time to be half alive and half asleep.

It was during the last winter that the Terrible Thought struck him. It was so nearly like a nightmare that he would have called it one, if flowers had a word for nightmare. Since they didn’t, he called it his Terrible Thought. And it was simply this: there is the tree, and there are the flowers, both need the sun. The tree is between the sun and the flowers, which leaves the flowers in the shade.

In his Terrible Thought he saw the tree’s broad, terribly effective leaves catching the light, breaking the Balance between sun and leaf, blotting out the sun, and starving the plants below. Too little sun, too little leaf. He woke with the sudden realization that they could not store enough energy to survive the winter. And if not that coming summer, then the next.

During spring he watched the tree’s leaves fill in as shade darkened the ground. He estimated that even if they did not have one single cloudy day, they would not survive the winter with enough energy to sprout the following spring.

A bit of wind pushed into the flowers just then, swaying the patch. Each felt the wind, Illy and Lilly’s thin stems bending to absorb the pressure.

Mr. Azure continued, “Unless we solve the problem, we can only hope for the survival of our seeds. Our seeds, unlike us, can use the wind to get away from the tree’s shade and find a place of Balance.” Mr. Azure thought that this was important, that his seeds get far away to a bright sunny field. But he also considered himself important, so he thought and thought about their problem, failing and failing to think of a solution. “Harmony and Balance are disrupted. Too much growth, to little trimming, too little sun, too little leaf. To solve the problem we need to attain Balance, but how? Trimming the tree? Impossible. Increase the sun? Impossible. Increase our leaf sizes? Impossible.”

Mr. Azure had already told Caruso on the sly, thinking the old flower would have some wisdom to share. He didn’t tell Illy and Lilly that the old flower only pointed out that there was no more grass on the ground. As the tree grew, less and less sun fed the grass. Caruso remembered when the tree was new, and grass covered the ground, always speaking their grass nonsense. “Never thought I’d miss that endless chattering. Worse than the girls even. Completely mindless talk. Utterly boring! Grass talks about only one field you know, the field of grass related interests. Field! Ha! How tall to grow, how green to get, what is the best width, what is the best thickness. Constantly. I could never pay attention and could never completely not pay attention either.”

Mr. Azure hadn’t given any mind to the lack of grass all around them. It confirmed to him that he was correct. The tree was taking all the sun and the grass was the first to go.

Mr. Azure also did not share with Illy and Lilly the fact that Mr. Caruso immediately told Mrs. Scarlet, and Mr. Azure had to spend time answering her questions.

Now Illy and Lilly knew.

Mr. Azure concluded, “That leaves us with the following question, what are we to do?”

Mr. Azure was about to go on, but it was Lilly who surprised him with a question. At least, he thought it was Lilly, it might have been Illy. “Why don’t we ask for help?”

“Help?” Mr. Azure was so struck by this that he repeated himself, which was very unusual, “Ask for help? From whom?” He thought that he had considered the matter deeply.

“Sure, help,” said the other one, who was probably Illy, “We could try to get help from the tree.”

Lilly finished, “Up at the tree leaves, there is plenty of sun, and we could just ask the tree to let some sun through.”

That idea filled Mr. Azure with an immediate sense of possibility, a feeling he hadn’t had since theTerrible Thought.

“Mr. Caruso!”

Caruso had drifted off into his own thoughts during Mr. Azure’s explanation of the problem. “Uhh!” he said, as he snapped up.

“Illy and Lilly have an idea. We could ask the tree to share the sunlight with us. You know the tree. You were here when it was on our level. We need to know what the tree is like and how we should speak to him.”

Illy and Lilly blushed at Mr. Azure mentioning them.

“Well, that was many seasons ago. When that tree first came here, he was as small as we are. But boy,” Caruso looked up at the great expanse of the trunk and branches above them, “he’s grown. He was a reasonable youngster. A loner, cause he has no patch of his own, you see? We were actually something like mates. He was all alone, just a young sapling then, and I’d already been around the year a few times. We weren’t close like Lilly and Illy here, but close enough, considering.” Caruso drifted off again for a moment, remembering. “His name is Max, but you could call him Maximum now. Maximum! Ha!”

Caruso looked at Mr. Azure, “He knew he was in for big things from the second he got here. But he never was one to take advantage. He never stole our water, and I think he probably could have, as he got big, but not so big that I couldn’t talk to him. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind helping out an old friend. The problem is that we haven’t talked for seasons now. He’s gotten too big. You’d have to get all the way up there.” Caruso pointed up at the trunk as it entered the leaves. “This is all a mistake you know. He doesn’t mean to do this. He just doesn’t know about us. He’s grown so big he’s forgotten his roots.”

Lilly was excited, “Nime could help.”

“Yeah, Nime could help,” cried Illy, who was also excited. They first met Nime as soon as they flowered and seldom stopped talking about her since. Nime was a honey bee.

In general, bees move very fast, although it might be that flowers move very slowly. At the beginning of the season both Lilly and Illy made several friendly “hellos,” and to each the bee replied “Nime, Nime, Nime.” Only after the first few visits did Illy and Lilly make out that Nime was actually saying “No time,” but so fast that the words blurred together. By then her name was Nime.

Illy thought Nime had had the most beautiful yellow hairs and particularly admired her eyes, which were a golden color of a lovely metallic hue. Lilly admired Nime’s yellow antenna. She made a point of giggling when Nime’s thick feelers tickled her petals. As Nime drank her nectar, Lilly could feel the beautiful yellow hairs that covered Nime’s legs as they picked up and dropped off pollen deposits.

Illy and Lilly were upset each time Nime appeared to favor the red leaves of Mrs. Scarlet and the blue of Mr. Azure to their pale yellow. Even though they looked forward to Nime, her daily visits never failed to make them upset. Mrs. Scarlet comforted them afterwards, “Illy, Nime is spending more and more time with your nectar, you just can’t tell it. And Lilly, Nime could clearly see your yellow trim just as clearly as I can. I’m sure of it.” Illy and Lilly were slightly less sure of this when Scarlet got them confused.

Mr. Azure looked at Illy and Lilly as though he wanted to get back to looking at the tree. “Honey bees always work. That may be why Nime can never stay and talk. I’m not sure Nime can help us. She may lack the time, ability, as well as the inclination, even if she can understand us. We may be too slow for her.” He paused and looked up at the tree. “But I think we have to try.”

Preface

2006-05-09T21:31:00.000-07:00

Hey, I changed the story a bit, revising and revising. This is the preface to the kids book.

-------------------

At first the world had no needs, for all the world had Balance. Sun to leaf, and leaf to sun, part to part, and part to all: all were found in Balance. Eaters balanced growth, and harmony balanced eaters, and nothing grew unbalanced.

The eater Drasil spoke to the grower Opyn Loc. Drasil asked her to grow something both beautiful and new. And so she grew a flower and it was something both beautiful and new. But Opyn Loc asked the eaters to resist the flower, for it was not in Harmony and hid a secret imbalance.

Yet when Drasil examined the flower, he found it to be something of balance and something of harmony. And when the flower named Myrr spoke of its hidden nectar, then Drasil first knew hunger and want. Drasil ate from the nectar and when he ate, from stamen to style, Drasil and Myrr made a new Harmony.

The seeds were something new again. But they did not have Balance. The seeds spread through all there was, and they began to grow. Those that grew from sun became sun. From water, water; plant, plant. And Eaters. Eaters became eaters, and the eaters of eaters.

Some seeds have Myrr’s shape, some can turn sun to food, and some have even her flower, but all are pale imitations of the first. Fallen things, the flowers from Myrr need sun to be seen and air to be smelled.

Opyn Loc grew in paradise until the seeds. After the seeds, with Balance lost, from Harmony came discord. The seeds brought need. The leaf needs sun as the root needs soil. Balance occurs where Harmony accounts for all needs. This is the only blessing left.

The story bored Lillian. She did not feel for one instant that her petals were degenerate things. Neither did Hillary. She felt that if the seeds brought her along, then she could live without a perfect Balance.

Of course, Lillian and Hillary were young, and the young should have no need of such stories, for such stories are like decay, present only where youth and growth are not.

A Fish Story

2006-05-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

Just when you think Bush can't go any lower, in polls, he makes a joke. Although most of the liberal blogs aren't saying this, what follows was a joke. When asked the best moment of his presidency, he said that he pulled out a 7 lb perch from his lake in TX.

Some fun facts about perch, they only grow to about 2 pounds, they'll eat anything, they're easy to catch.

Perch facts

Oh, and if you haven't seen the Colbert video yet, then you must.

Best satire I've ever seen, ever read, bar none.

Fault

2006-05-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

Recent news that British are healthier than Americans while enjoying the same rates of smoking, obesity, and lack of excercise seem to implicate the US health system. That may be. But I'd say there's a lot more to it than that. First of all, these are two different cultures (and for proof of that, watch a Benny Hill episode), so there are literally thousands of differences. While the British may smoke more, they certainly walk more. This morning, I walked to my car, drove to work, and have essentially been sitting ever since. In the UK, that is unlikely to happen.

But to move onto health care. What a difference prevention makes! UK's got it. We don't. End of story. My medical school friends who are in primary care make 6 figures by small margins. Those in specialties can make more than double that, while working about the same.

Here's how it works. Two cases.

Mrs. Peach is 25, she establishes care with a primary care doctor to treat her thyroid condition. That doctor does so. He also recommends she stop smoking, which she does. He recommends she stay healthy, which she does, eating whole grains, avoiding trans fats, and excercising. She goes through life. At 40 she needs a gall bladder surgery and at 50 a thyroid nodule comes out. Whe has carpal tunnel at 55. At 85 she becomes forgetful and is on three pills: one vitamin, one thyroid pill, and an aspirin. She dies in her sleep at the age of 88. The cause of death is deemed cardiac, but no lesions are discovered at autopsy. Most doctors would say off the record that she died of old age (but you can't put that on the paper).

Mrs. Drain is 25, but has no health insurance, so the thyroid condition goes without detection while Mrs. Drain becomes obese. Mrs. Drain smokes and never considers the effects. Mrs. Drain walks when forced. Her obesity literally squeezes a back disk inot her spine and she requires a surgery and another one to correct the first. Her knees start to go, further preventing her from walking. At 40 she needs a gall bladder, and at that time diabetes is discovered. Because her habits are established by then, weight loss is impossible. She goes on meds to control the diabetes. At her next visit, he doctor cannot feel a pulse, so she is referred to surgery. Multiple stents are placed through her femoral artery to open it up. Now deemed a high risk vasculopath, Mrs. Drain is placed on 8 different drugs, which make her tired and she is unable to work. She goes on medical disability full time by the age of 53. Her first heart attack occurs by 57, requiring further stents, and she is blind by 60 from the poorly controled diabetes. Retinal surgery with lasers is of marginal benefit. At the age of 63 she has another heart attack. She is brought into the hospital without a blood pressure and coded for 15 minutes. During this time, her brain received little blood flow and massive cerebral injury occured. After spending the next 4 days in an ICU, she is deemed to have little chance of a functional neurologic outcome. For the first time in more than 20 years her blood glucose reaches normal levels. Nevertheless, the breathing tube is withdrawn and she dies about an hour later.

The differences between Mrs. Peach and Mrs. Drain are myriad, but I'd like to focus your attention on their economic differences. Nothing more need be said.

Freedom

2006-05-02T11:43:00.000-07:00

[quote=Bush]I based a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true. One, I believe there's an Almighty, and secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody's soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free. I believe liberty is universal. I believe people want to be free. And I know that democracies do not war with each other. And I know that the best way to defeat the enemy, the best way to defeat their ability to exploit hopelessness and despair is to give people a chance to live in a free society. [/quote]

Full speech [URL=http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/20060424-2.html]here[/URL]

I'm going to ignore one easy target: Bush is giving Iraqis a chance to be free, but he doesn't have people like Maher Arar in mind. For now, I'll also ignore the low hanging fruit that the last thing the US wants in Iraq is a democracy (so they can elect a theocrat), and that we must act to prevent that from occuring.

Instead, I'd just like to focus attention on Bush's theology. He says what he means. He bases foreign policy on his Christian notions of truth and he expects that reality will follow.

Some time ago I said that Bush's foreign policy is essentially religious: it is faith based and in no way contingent on reality (reality of Iraqi-911 ties, WMD in Iraq, sects within Iraq, questions of quagmires). Some people thought there was no evidence for this and doubted the case I was making. Well, here you go. Here is a man who bases the foreign policies of man's greatest nations on his notions of what his god thinks. And he has so little shame, so much arrogance, that he says exactly this.

No amount of bloodshed and death and destruction could ever convince him otherwise. No number of Coulberts could make him see his errors. The only thing that might help would be god himself in the white house living room. And then Bush would see her as a false god, clearly.

As an American, I hold my own liberty dear. But I'm not so arrogant as to take what I myself hold dear and make that into a universal constant. For that to occur, you've got to impose your values literally upon the fabric of the universe. And for that to occur, you've lost your sense of causal direction.

Because the universe has other ideas, as Iraq ought to be teaching us, as the Congo ought to have taught us.

The freedom of Iraqis is a moot point and always has been. What happens when the theocrats attain "a chance to live in a free society"? Well, Jihad is their word for it.

Youth

2006-04-29T18:44:00.000-07:00

Youth is beautiful nearly by definition. My wife and kids went to a party of some youths, one of whom invited us. They are all in their 20's, which is a difficult time for American no-longer-children. They're getting out of college, starting the first job, still thinking that they'll do this sort of job for a while before moving on. All to soon they will find themselves with a daily grind, a mortgage, perhaps children.

In the meantime, they are lovely. Twenty year olds these days have multiple tattoos, and some of them have detailed work. They call these 'ink,' and prestige is given to the most daring. Given the fact there is nothing to do to prevent this in my own children, I'll simply settle for something small.

And muscles. This is also very in. About half of the men spend serious gym time and perhaps even pharmacologic enhancements. I wanted to ask them if any had ever seen the Sponge Bob episode about anchor arms.

In your 30's you start noting the passing of time as etched on your face. In your 20's this is unthinkable. Skin is without wrinkles, tissue is plump with natural connective tissue, and eyes glitter with the wonder of the universe.

All of them are terrific. The women are so smooth, so different from my peers (Mrs. NOS can hold her own), that I nearly want to cuddle them as I do my child. The guys are handsome. The groove between the deltoid and the tricep is not only present, but looks as though it could give a nasty pinch. There is no ugliness yet: of body and of mind. There is only promise.

One young man actually asked me for my advice given that he's graduating from college: what should his next step be? But he phrased it incorrectly as a comparison to what I did after college, so I was forced to answer: med school. No help to him, and then the moment was lost. But if I were to render advice, it would be this: attain and climb, climb and attain. After college, you've got to attain. You've got to climb. You've got to enter the work force and find something that you can do well, that pays well, and that will be fun. Don't put all the effort into one thing (which I did when I was in medical school), spend some of your effort in high risk areas (boy, do I wish I had learned something about computers and the internet in medical school instead of useless biochemistry!). It takes luck and personal characteristics and the ratio favors luck by a lot.

Best of luck.

Teaching Case

2006-04-23T10:51:00.000-07:00

78 year old guy who has a 50 year heroin habit (quit for last 5 years). I've met some people with long habits before, just not ones who've quit on their own volitition. He had just finished telling me about helping to build skyscrapers in NYC, so I ask him, eyebrows raised in some amount of disbelief, "You built skyscrapers while using heroin?"

"Yep." He looked pleased with himself.

"Well, how did you do that?"

"Carefully. Very carefully."

There's a lot to learn from that.

This guy goes into my "toughest guys I've known" category. First of all, anyone who survives a 50 year heroin habit is nails tough. Sure, luck plays into it, but 50 years starts to negate luck. Second of all, he looks tough. This guy is 78 and although he looks it (even his face is grisled), he's the sort of guy that, even now, I wouldn't particularly want to get into a fight with. He's fireplug strong looking. His blunt face has a Roman nose that looks to be broken a few times. Scar tissue covers both eyebrows. His arms have jail tattoos, which have their own tough stories. Well, let's hope they've stopped making his destructive model, but I can't help but admire the way it was put together. Like seeing one of those old F150s with 500000 miles.

Another Lesson

2006-04-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

The chief complaint, they teach us in medical school, is the portal to the patient. Like the window to their soul. All else should follow from there. It makes some sense, in that at very least, one needs to address the patient's main problem, and that you shouldn't ever loose sight of that main problem.

However, like all dogma, it breaks down in the chaotic system called reality.

I had a woman with a headache. That was her chief complaint. OK. But on exam, she shows more than the usual vagueness. She has had headaches all of her life, but she can't describe them at all. In fact, there's something clearly wrong with her story because there's clearly something wrong with her. She's completly confused. So I abandon the chief complaint and focus on the real problem.

Which is something that comes with great difficulty. It actually goes against all the medical dogma. I'm in uncharted waters. I'm the religiomaniac who reads and understands Darwin. This makes good sense, yet it must not be. One mustn't ignore the chief complaint.

So I send her to the ER, where labs show she is in renal failure. Dogma falsified becomes... Tradition?

Elementary

2006-04-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

The unknown diagnosis. It's like a friend you've just met: you're smitten with possibilities. Then you start in on it and it'll turn out to be something or other, another normal disease, just like your friend will turn out to just be a normal person.

But right at takeoff it's still open. And that's where I am with one of the patients. This one is highlighted by the fact that I'm leaving and won't do the follow ups that'll seal the diagnosis, for better or for worse. But on this one I'll get the rest of the story.

I find the most interesting cases are always slightly outside my comfort zone, which is exactly what makes them interesting, they are not routine.

2006-04-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

I don't usually read the Nation, but I heard an excellent argument by one of their editors named David Korn as he helped to destroy Christopher Hitchens (who at one point said that the absence of WMD in Iraq is proof of their existence. And no, I'm not making that up.). Hitchens is a pompous idiot blowhard. I'm ashamed he's an atheist. The link is a long discussion, I rec downloading it to an I-pod/whatever, then going for a run.

So thank you David Korn, for making me check out The Nation. It is entertaining and the articles are excellent. And I urge you to check out the latest Kevin Philips article highlighting exactly the people to whom Hitchens has sold out to.

Liar

2006-04-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

Today I caught a patient in a lie. Well, not so much me, but when I discussed the matter with a third party, we honed in on the lie. He essentially lied about what I told him in order to get what he wanted. It regarded a test that I said was useless. He got off the phone and ordered another doctor, "Doctor NOS wants the test now."

Getting what we want. That's the thing we all want, isn't it. But sometimes you can't get it. Sorry. Particularly in medicine. We do not run a Walmart (and even in Walmart I doubt you could find everything, like Rhino Jerky). Your doctor will usually get a reasonable test that she doesn't think will help if you stongly want it. But few doctors care so little that they would get a useless test.

"What's the harm?" He asked me, more than once.

Well, that sounds like a reasonable question. But it is not the proper question. The proper question is "What's the benefit?" And if there is no benefit to the test, then there is no further need to ask about possible harm.

He didn't like that. That's OK. I don't particularly like him.

Bush and Clancy

2006-04-09T18:52:00.000-07:00

I know this is a tangent, but I recently read a Tom Clancy book (one of the Ryan books that they haven't (yet) made a movie out of). About a quarter into the book, when all the chips start lining up, the following thought hit me: thank god we don't live in Clancy's world. And then this thought followed me through the book. The fake presidency of Jack Ryan is required to determine what other nation states, and in this case, a scism within a nation state, are up to, then act accordingly. They need to combine intel with wisdom with ferocity and with mercy.

Bush doesn't do that. Now, I know this is silly. Clancy writes fiction, this is a silly tangent. But I can't help but think that if you'd put team Bush into any of those situations, they'd fail miserably. After all, they've failed in Iraq, they've failed in North Korea, they've failed in Latin America. The simple things that Clancy writes about: the good management of information and resources to win the day, is missing from Team Bush. They don't do things like that. What they do is go off half cocked and mess things up badly.

Anyway, present day Iran is scary, especially because Team Bush managed to remove their main enemy from the stage while America has been keeping Iran's coffers full. However, I find the Bush reaction to Iran to be the really scary part.

Psychologically, right now Team Bush is like a surgeon who's just messed up bad. They don't, can't, even admit this to themselves much less the public, but there've gotta be some dark nights when it hits them how horribly they've screwed up in Iraq. How there haven't been any flowers. How freedom, democracy, and capitalism isn't sweeping through the region. Just like that surgeon who inflated the catheter to stop the bleeding, but cathed the spine and stroked the cord. There was a complication and it's terrible. Now that surgeon is looking at malpractice, and his place in history. Then its time to over-react. Anybody see this phenomenon before? It's bad stuff.

Sometimes these things have a way of snowballing. Check out S. Hersh.

Bush Lies.

2006-04-06T21:26:00.000-07:00

Nearly two years later and we're pretty close to knowing that this was a lie.

Let's not forget what he said.

----------------------

March 18, 2003

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

Badness

2006-03-31T10:27:00.000-08:00

Another bad Bush/GOP week in review. I'll probably miss some of the top stories.

Bush censure hearings. John Dean, who knows a little something about political corruption from his stint as Nixon's lawyer, calls Bush's wiretapping actions worse than anything Nixon did. Ouch.

Immigration. This is a point that divids the GOP against themselves. Some want to continue to exploit illegals. Some want to expel illegals. Bush is in the first camp, and perhaps he's correct. I think the best case can be made for sealing the border and giving out permits to those already here. At least that doesn't ignore the realities of the situation. But Bush's base isn't interested in realities: they either want to exploit or expel.

Bad news from Iraq: sectarian violence continues. It is time to face facts regarding our failure. Iraq is suffering the ending that everyone feared: sectarian violence and a failure of political leadership. Instead, local warlords, each with a militia, have control on the ground and national leadership needs to deal with them - not citizens. This dooms our involvement.

Rice says we've made "thousands of errors," in Iraq. Her full quote is "I know we've made tactical errors, thousands of them, I'm sure." This is a bit like me saying the same thing over the dead body of one of my patients. Or, more aptly, if I were a surgeon.

Tony C. Rudy, one of DeLay's aides, pleads guilty to some charges and agrees to cooperate in a lobbying fraud investigation. Watch yourself when you eventually go to jail, pretty boy.

Finally, I did not know this: Bush has never gone to a funeral for a soldier killed in Iraq. Never. Hard to prove a negative, but a search through the internet: not one. And we all know there've been plenty of chances. Another one of Bush's personal failures as a leader and as a man.

Terrorists

2006-03-28T22:11:00.000-08:00

Who are terrorists? Well, the answer is statistical, a famous type of lie. The odds are good that if you were to get a terrorist, that terrorist would be an Islamic religiomaniac. But those are not the only terrorists. I've decided to list all the non-Islamic terrorist organizations, which get enough representation in the news and are so numerous it would make the project difficult. As I go through the list, do note that Islam is the worst. Also, some of these 'terrorist organizations' might be freedom fighters or whatnot. I'm also ignoring the charge that the US does activities that make us essentially terrorists, or state sponsors of terrorism.

Christians have their Eric Rudolph. He belonged to a group called Christian Identity, which is still around. There's also Army of God, which is like a Venn diagram that looks like a single circle. James Charles Kopp shot a doctor and was sheltered for quite some time by Christian nutballs.

The Christians also have Orange/Red hands that fought against the IRA and splinter groups.

The ETA is Spain is probably made of mostly Catholics.

The Tamil Tigers actually invented the suicide bomber (they're Hindu), and have bombed Buddist temples, though some make the case they are freedom fighters.

Babbar Khalsa, and Dal Khalsa are Sikh groups who want an independent state they call 'Land of the Pure' out of India.

Aum Shinrikyo did those Tokyo attacks - some sort of nutball cult.

Some would strongly argue that Jewish settlers are themselves a form of terrorism. They certainly make poor neighbors. Who knows how wide you want to cast the word, but Jews have Kach and Kahane Chai, terrorist groups that Israel banned.

All the religions have terrorists. You show me the religion, I'll show you the nutballs.

Tom Waits

2006-03-26T15:32:00.000-08:00

Sort of a combination of a man with end stage laryngeal cancer, s/p radical neck dissection, recent extubation, who swallowed a few pounds of gravel and dust. I do not know how Tom Wait's vocal cords still function, but here's to them!

I'd sell your heart to the junkman baby
For a buck, for a buck
If you're looking for someone
To pull you out of that ditch
You're out of luck, you're out of luck

The ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
There's leak, there's leak,
In the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves, and lawyers

God's away, God's away,
God's away on Business. Business.
God's away, God's away,
God's away on Business. Business.

Digging up the dead with
A shovel and a pick
It's a job, it's a job
Bloody moon rising with
A plague and a flood
Jain the mob, jain the mob
It's all over, it's all over, it's all over
There's a leak, there's a leakk,
In the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves, and lawyers
God's away, God's away, God's away
On Business. Business.
God's away, God's away,
On Business. Business.

[Instrumental Break]

Goddamn there's always such
A big temptation
To be good, To be good
Tere's always free cheddar in
A mousetrap, baby
It's a deal, it's a deal
God's away, God's away, God's away
On Business. Business.
God's away, God's away, God's away
On Business. Business.
I narrow my eyes like a coin slot baby,
Let her ring, let her ring
God's away, God's away,
God's away on Business.
Business...

God's away on business

Excuses

2006-03-23T11:29:00.000-08:00

In my business I believe the keys to health are exactly what my primary care doctor told me on my first visit to him during college. This was my first visit to a non-peds doctor, other than rare visits to the local ER (fish-hook in arm, hairline fracture in wrist, corneal abrasion).

His nurse asked me to get undressed, which I did, and to the doctor's horror, I didn't catch the part about putting on the gown. I have no idea as to why I was seeing him (was that the time I had an ear infection, or when I needed a physical to go to med school), but I remember what he said after we were all done, "Stay lean."

"Huh?"

"Just stay lean. You should see the construction workers come in here. They stayed lean, they work out, they'll live to a hundred."

"OK."

That's damn good advice, and I've done exactly that.

But it is hard to pass along this wisdom to those who are no longer lean. Yet I sometimes try. When last seeing a patient for all complications of a sedentary life, I told him to work out.

"I can't."

"You can't?" My surprise was feigned. I've had these conversations before. I only said what I said because the guy was an ex-soldier and long ago I considered ex-soldiers tough.

"My back. It hurts."

I already knew, but I have something stubborn in me. "Swimming."

"The water hurts."

Oh boy. "Hurts?"

"Cold water hurts."

"Well, how about warming up first?"

"Can't." He went on for a while on that.

"How about biking?"

"I can't. I'm not stable enough."

"Let's stop talking about this, OK?" I hate to nag.

I just remember that every single person, fat, thin, and all in between, will eventually become bone thin.

Short Term/Long Term

2006-03-19T15:45:00.000-08:00

One of the favorite arguments of the right wing blogs and talk shows is that in the war on terror, we have two choices: here or there. Meaning another attack in the US or more attacks in Iraq. This is an inplicit assumption made, and sometimes even explicitly said by these various pundits.

And like all lies, it contains some truth. In this case, the truth it conains may be this: terrorists are attacking the US in Iraq, and may be a bit distracted. After all, they have limited resources. By putting these resources into Iraq, they are not putting them into attacks in the US.

That may be. It is impossible to know if it is the case or not. It is on this uncertainty that many in the political right base their support of the Iraq war. They ignore, however, the certainties. The certainties are the fact that if this is a solution at all, then it is a short term one. The US will pull out of Iraq, and when we do, the country will no longer be the sink for terrorism that the right theorizes it to be. Instead, it will be a source. Already we have seen terrorist attacks in Iraqi style outside Iraq borders. So this is not a hypothesis, an Iraqi source of terrorism is a new reality to the world.

That brings up the second certainy. The terrorists who are working Iraq are in training. They are learning their craft. And it is this problem which will haunt America in the long term.

It is famously said that in the long term we are all dead (Keynes I believe). But in American politics, that term lasts 4 to 8 years. If Bush can maintain the hypothetical sink in Iraq for that time, then he'll be long gone for the long term. Too bad this long term includes us.

"Petro-imperialism"

2006-03-17T10:05:00.000-08:00

No, this is not a Chomsky word. This word was coined by one of conservatism's very own, Kevin Phillips.. And that's amazing enough.

He's just come out with a book, reviewed here, that takes on what will emerge as the three most horrifying facts of our time: our oil interests, religion and fundamental Christianity in particular, and America's debt.

The review is amazing. I think I'm actually too frightened to read the book though. Other than the possible economic collapse of America (invest here and overseas is the personal lesson there), I agree with Phillips with regard to Christian fundamentalism. Why is Pat Robertson in the news so often, saying things that are clearly political, even geopolitical? Why does Bush stage meetings with Franklin Graham, another man who makes radical and hate filled speeches regarding Islam? Christian fundamentalists in this country are opposed to the seperation of church and state, or think that no such division exists. These are frightening developments for our society. Radicalism is not only an Islamic phenomenon. It has been shown that religious leaders seek political power, ie., Iran, Taliban, and Indonesia. The analogies are obvious.

There's always Europe. One of the great lessons from Europe is their secularism. I just wish America learned it.

The Curbside

2006-03-14T21:09:00.000-08:00

Perhaps it's a measure of nothing. Or how falsely confident some doctors get when discussing cases with peers. Or perhaps it's a measure of clear thinking and excellence. Either way, I've been getting a lot of curbsides lately from people within my specialty.

Doctors do this more often than you think. I'm sure that most patients believe that their doctors have pretty much 100% certainty as to what's going on, what to do, and how to treat it. But even with classic presentations, there's a lot of wiggle room.

The latest was a slightly atypical presentation of a typical disease. This also happens more often than you think. Nothing in medicine is ever 100%, and the more tests we devise for things, the more data we get, the more likely for these various ducks to be slightly off line. In this case, although the presentation was stroke, the imaging looked like infection (although this was only described to me), in the absence of anything else going for infection: fever and blood work and the like. Just that one little duck, pointing away from mother. Reassurance was in order. No need to invoke something odd here. No need to work up infection. But that's just what he did - worked up a primary infection, which meant another duck portion of data, this one pointing away from infection. Sometimes you just make the curbside to make yourself more comfortable. It gets lonely out there.

It's not like you can confide in the patient. But every time I do mention clinical uncertainty, the patient is always grateful. Shows I'm keeping an open mind I suppose.

This profession tends to attract people who actually give a shit about other people. It actually impresses me how prevalent this is. Obviously there are really bad ones out there, and the profession doesn't do enough to get them out, but odds are good that if you're a reasonable person, your doctor will care about you.

Biogen

2006-03-10T12:06:00.000-08:00

About a year ago, a medication called Tysabri for multiple sclerosis was taken off the market by Elan and their partner Biogen because of a single case of a fatal neurologic illness. The illness was almost certainly a side effect from the medication and prompted a huge sell off of Elan and Biogen stock. In a single day, billions of market share dollars were lost.

There were two more cases.

And now Tysabri is back on the market. The fears were overblown. The medication has risks. Aspirin has risks. But the medication has benefits. And people will pay for the benefits with money and assuming the risk.

I put a minor amount of money into Biogen and into Elan and had some return on my investment, but more importantly I think I learned some lessons. The first is that this game is luck. It could have been the case that Tysabri caused more cases of the fatal disease. Or that other problems creep up. The other is that the market is generally irrational, so bad news is often met with a worse reaction.

And I think there is something wrong with my comments.

Things I Believe

2006-03-07T22:02:00.000-08:00

Two crossed threads.

1. At Mary Bishop's suggestion, I read Sam Harris' rant about how bad religion is. It brings up great issues, I agree with most of it (would only add that nationalism is important as well and I feel he neglects this), and have heard it all before from Betrand Russell. The latter's 'Why I'm Not a Christian' should be required reading for all college grads as an example of clear thought, clear writing, and correctness. Overall, Harris is a yappy aggro version of Russell. I couldn't get through all of it.

2. So the other day at work I get an email from a very pleasant person who works with me. It's a chain email and its about praying. Something about how every day you should pray. I didn't read it closely. It was poorly written in the flight of some religious hysteria.

I wrote back telling the person that I'm an atheist. No thanks. She wrote back and said sorry about 3 times in 2 sentences. Not a bad ratio. I said: who cares.

Except now the secret is out. Like I'm out of the closet - and that analogy is apt. Anyway, who cares. I'm leaving this job at the end of the academic year and moving to another state.

But while driving home and replaying this in my head, I've thought it should be a good idea to write down what I DO believe in. Christians have an entire book of things they believe in. I just have this list, but at least I can edit and update it. Perhaps this could be my daily affirmation:

- There is no God.

- There is no evidence for God, and all people who believe in God do so without the slightest bit of reason.

- Every person believes contradictory things, so who cares if people believe in God.

- If God is present, then the idea that humans know exactly how he wants us to live via various religious sects is highly improbable.
- There is strong evidence for the existence of humans.
Thus one should never put the interests of what one
thinks God wants over what fellow humans want.

- There are probably general rules that are best applied to groups of people in order to establish good, working social order. These are man made constructs and we call them by the name of morality. Perhaps some of these rules are hardwired into our brains. Even though they do not exist, they are indoctrinated into us either through nature, nurture and probably both, and they have little meaning if analysed outside their own moral context, they are worth keeping around.

- Some things are just good and usually this needs no further explanation. Health is good, sickness is bad. Helping others is good, hurting others is evil.

- After death there's nothing. There's nothing before life, and there's nothing after it. Mental processes depend on neuronal processes, so it neuron serving speech die, then the person can't talk. If the neurons serving memory die, then the person can't form memories. Likewise, if the brain dies, the person can't do anything, including have a mental life. Behave like this life is your last, because it is.

- A slightly regulated capitalism is the least worst system of government and naturally feeds into important personal and civic freedoms.

- The Constitution of the United States America is one of the most important documents ever writen and we are damn lucky to had had the good fortune of being born under it.

- Dogmatism, at a minimum, forgives great evils. Its maximums have not yet been explored because it is difficult to probe infinite evil. The closest we've come are genocides and Hummers.

- Between what is good to do and what is better to do, it is usually better to try, to give, to add value, and to help. Unless your work involves acts of genocide.

Well, that's all. I'll keep an update. Have any more for the list?

Workout Woes

2006-03-05T19:03:00.000-08:00

As readers know, I ran a half marathon and didn't do so well. What I also did was mess up my foot. The outside (lateral) aspect of my left foot is in pain. Only when I walk, so I unilaterally decided my 3 year old shoes weren't cutting it, and got new ones.

Sometimes I think I'm in a racket of a business. When I go see some of the patients, it's not as though they've asked to see me. Some are literally captives, on breathing machines, IVs, feeding tubes, some are more literally restrained so they don't pull these tubes out of themselves. They didn't ask for my business, and sometimes I feel like I add very little, so I think of it as a rackett.

But the shoe business! That really puts anything I do to shame!

At the entrance to the runner's globe, or whatever the place was called, there are more posters than one would have found in 1950's Russia. Orwell could never have imagined a free market producing these sorts of propaganda slogans. 'RUN!' shouts one, showing a lovely woman runner pushing her way up a grassy hill.

Next to that is the measurement place. Here, a healthy young man sits with a pad that you walk on. The pad measure the pressure areas of your foot. It's amazing. Heel, ball, big toe. The foot is a cool thing.

The computer tells me what I already know: I have high arches, but I did not know that I'm a pronator (I think the medical word is intorsion, but pronator does the trick as well). Within moments, they had my shoes picked out, with arch insert, and I was then a hundred dollars poorer.

Huh? I asked, clutching my bag.

This afternoon I tried the new shoes out. They are nice and light. And my foot began hurting again within a few hundred yards. Oh well. Healing will take time. I can bike instead.

Foreign Mess

2006-03-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

No, not Iraq, where even WF Buckley says we've failed. No, not North Korea, where Bush's administration did not even attempt to enter into talks and had no plans as North Korea armed himself with nukes. No, not Palestine, where Bush's administration pushed for democracy while having no plan if the 'wrong' people won.

India, where Bush is presently visiting. This will be another of his failures. India is arming up with nukes, and Bush wants to give them more. Too bad for the rest of the world. This will give all sorts of bad actors bad ideas.

Another failure. Shrug.

Slice of Utah

2006-02-28T21:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.michaeltotten.com/

Check out the part of Iraq that's going to make it.

As to what they'll do with their southern neighbors, who knows.

He says it looks like Utah. I've been to Utah a few times. The food in northern Iraq would have to be better.

Guess Who?

2006-02-27T12:43:00.000-08:00

William F. Buckley says, "One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed."

I'm not sure what the objective was, and Buckley doesn't say it to my satisfaction, but it seems to be something along the lines of a stable and civil society. I guess you have to read him over time for that.

With this, Bush's worst presidential failure (the one that brings him into the worst 10 presidents) is now official. To have Buckley the arch-conservative calling this action a failure is essentially like having the choir calling you anti-Christ.

You can read it here.

The AIDS

2006-02-26T19:44:00.000-08:00

I've worked in a hospice, a few ERs, and on the floors, and seen plenty of deaths. But humans always remember firsts and lasts, don't we?

I don't know if it was exactly the first time I declared death or not. I'm pretty sure it was not, because I already knew that declaring death is a joke. The hard part is in keeping dying people alive, not in determining death.

And so my pager went off. And I went to see the dead patient. He looked like he'd died several days prior, instead of half an hour ago (I was able to tell the medical student who was with me that when you go to declare death, give at least 15 minutes from the time the nurses call you to declare death to the time you show up. Because if you show up and the patient has, let's say, a heartbeat, then you need to wait and it's a wasted trip). His skin was drawn into his body like a mummy. You could make out the bones on his wrists, his cheeks were hollows. I listened at his chest (such bones!). Nothing. Lungs nothing. No pulses. Eyes fixed. Like the vast majority of humans through time, this man was among the dead.

His partner was in the room. I told him what he already knew. He nodded. I think he might have shaken my hand, but I'm unsure. I'm certain I recall the look on his face. There was great sadness, but there was plenty of relief. Life goes on for the ones who live, and it was probably high time to get on with things.

And in retrospect, there was another emotion present: shame. Which is understandable. Since then I've come to expect this. With long illnesses, family members can't help but reach a certain place where the death is seen as the better alternative. The only trouble with that is the sense of shame. After all, we aren't supposed to wish for death for our loved ones, even if that's exactly the best thing for them.

It also strikes me now, after the fact, that my place in the matter was both of no importance and of deep value. These two men had stayed together through the diagnosis of a sexually transmitted and fatal disease. One had gotten sick, then sicker. One can only imagine what they'd been through. The partner had no doubt taken care of him over many years. The disease reached the end stage, and then the patient reached the end. How many doctors, nurses, technologists and the like had they seen over the years? And after the end, just a referee to make it official, here I come. After the years, I spent less than 5 minutes in the room. But that's what people need.

Run

2006-02-21T21:30:00.000-08:00

I'm not in the best shape of my life.

This was confirmed last weekend during a half marathon that kicked my ass. I finished in about an hour and 3/4, but it nearly killed me to do so. During the run, I was thinking of the following excuses, which I needed because women in their 40s were passing me. Now, I know that men and women are equal, so its OK for women, especially fast women, to beat me. I do know that to be true cognitively. There is no shame in loosing to a woman. However, that is not part of my culture. My emotional brain does not agree with this at all. Sorry.

1. OK, so you passed me. And you're a woman and I'm a man. But everything's relative. Like if I were a male slug, and you were a woman lion, then this is what we'd expect. So why am I detecting a subtle smile as you pass me? And don't tell me this is the endorphins.

2. Did you know that my mother just died? Well, of course not. She is alive. Actually, it was my friend's aunt. And she died 3 years ago. But one never knows the mysteries of the human mind and how that might be affecting my performance today.

3. The guys in the olympics don't even have to compete against women. However, they all seem to have to wear very gay outfits. So there are trade offs.

4. Did you know that I'm running in the shoes that I ran my last half marathon in - and that it was 3 years ago? And that I'm later to find out that my feet are covered in blisters (true btw)? I hope you think about that as you smile to yourself: you passed a guy running on bleeding stumps for feet.

5. I notice you have an I-Pod. I forgot mine. Damn. Could you turn yours up?

6. Running is really not my thing. Running is an extremly womanly activity. Men don't run. We wrestle and shoot things. That's what I'm good at. I'm just running to stay in shape for doing these manly things and others. Later I'm going to go bowling. And then I'm going to go kill something cute.

7. OK. Who am I kidding. You are just in better shape, a better runner, and you're killing me. The only thing that is true is that I had blisters - which were asymptomatic. If you believed any of these excuses, then you're a perfect setup to believe the White House as they spin their Katrina failure. I'm not in the best shape for this. I'm clearly in need of more type I muscle fibers. Rematch?

Religion is Horrible

2006-02-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

In my internet wanderings, I came upon this: http://www.creationtours.com

And this idiot: http://www.drdino.com/

What always amazes me about these things is the alien senario. I think to myself, what would an alien who knows nothing of these things, think about this 'debate.' Or another senario is a person raised on a desert island, and then comes into contact with these ideas of Jesus, Allah, evolution, Krishna, big bangs for the first time at the age of 25.

What would these blank slates make of all the nonsense that religions contain? And what would they make of the fierceness with which this nonsense is defended, even to the point of pain, suffering, and death of others? What would they make out of the defense of something so at odds with data and reason, like creationism, when the simple theory of evolution exists?

I think I know what they'd think. If we grant them knowledge about the way in which people work, then they'd think that religious people are approaching the world, looking at the data from the world, and seeing all theories about the world with religion colored glasses. These mental glasses prevent all data other than what is in perfect refraction with their pre-existing notions to get through. All else is simply considered false, or deliberatly misunderstood, or given such a high burden of proof as to overwhelm any idea.

And what would the blank slate being think about the religion, as an idea? I imagine that he'd read tales of virgin births, patchy and contradictory writings, improbabilities and impossibilities, and random ethical rules containing cruelty, injustices, and absurdities. He'd consider these various books, the bible new and old, the Koran, Morman, Upanishads to be interesting fables, perhaps, but for him to consider these books to be the word of God would be laughable. And yet can you imagine his confusion when he's told that people have died and killed based on these fables? Or that people deny evidence about the world based on these incoherant writings? Or that people actually consider these static writings to contain the most important ideas ever written and ever to be written?

If it all weren't so horrible, these beliefs would be laughable.

Creepy

2006-02-15T20:07:00.000-08:00

I don't usually get into these horrible murder semi-mysteries. However, I wanted to know what was up with this guy, so obviously I went to Wikipedia.

Several creepy things:
1. The event. CREEPY!
2. The guy. CREEPY!
3. The fact their wedding website is still up. CREEPY!
4. The fact that his E-Bay profile is still up. CREEPY!
5. The fact he sold crappy get rich quick schemes over E-Bay. CREEPY! And interesting. I've always wanted to get rich...

Creepy

Freedom on the march!

2006-02-13T21:08:00.000-08:00

Bush, 11/03:

"Securing democracy in Iraq is the work of many hands... This is a massive and difficult undertaking -- it is worth our effort, it is worth our sacrifice, because we know the stakes. The failure of Iraqi democracy would embolden terrorists around the world, increase dangers to the American people, and extinguish the hopes of millions in the region. Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Tehran -- that freedom can be the future of every nation. The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution...

Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And it will yield the same results. As in Europe, as in Asia, as in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace."

Hi, I just woke up out of a coma and this is the last thing I remember hearing. It was on the radio and I began cheering for Bush, but then my SUV rolled over several times after hitting an insect on a curb. "democracy and freedom are on the march." Now that I'm awake, they tell me I've been in a coma for the last 2 years! I haven't been keeping up with the news.

Boy, I'm glad the US adopted a new policy, a "forward strategy of freedom." I imagine that in the last 2 years, there's been a wave of freedom from Damascus to Tehran. Because freedom leads to peace, I'm sure the Middle East is now a peaceful and lovely place. Is Iran peaceful and free? Because I've always wanted to visit. I'm so excited to turn on the news and see the results of the "global democratic revolution"!!!

Or should I just book my ticket to Baghdad now?

Send Bill

2006-02-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

Send Bill to Africa.

Now, if you don't get the NY Times, the the gist is that Nicholas Kristof, who is a moral hero of our day btw, by bringing Darfur/Sudan into the public light, got pissed off at Bill O'Reilly, who is a blowhard coward of our day btw, by doing nothing but being an all star member of the Bush defense league and calling people like Kristof liberals. Kristof asked Bill to come with him on one of his trips to Darfur:

"You'll have to leave your studio, Bill. You'll encounter pure evil. If you're like me, you'll be scared ... and you'll finally be using your talents for an important cause."

So then, O'Reilly got mad. Because cowards hate it when they are called to do something brave. He said he has a show to run.

Now the game is on. Send Bill to Darfur. Perhaps he'll contract malaria, or compassion, or even humanity! He might get all three!

Here's the best thing. All you have to do is pledge money. Send your PLEDGE to sponsorbill@gmail.com. Don't send real cash, just what you can afford to send Bill away from the place he does damage.

I love this. Kristof looks like a wimp. He looks like a guy who might have gotten beaten up in high school. But he's got a tougher guy inside him than the one in me. For him to go to Darfur, that takes balls. Bill ought to take notice: you cannot out-tough people who are made of iron and who have steel balls. And for that, Kristof is worth the 100 bucks.

State of the Union...

2006-02-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

...was not just a great song by New Order. State of the Union. SOTU, which bears some resemblance to STFU, which appears to be the message to Cindy Sheehan.

After reading the speech (I can no longer stand to listen to Bush verbally), I then checked out 2005's SOTU address. Little difference.

But it is interesting to look backwards. About one year ago we were treated to talk of a free and soverign Iraq, talk of reducing government spending, increasing education, even medical liability reform. Nice words, and it really is a shame that they have no bearing or reference to reality. Then there was the social security crisis, which Bush dropped like a bomb over Iraq when it turned out to be a no go.

One tragic thing that occurs when I read the 2005 speech is a realization. Essentially, Bush could have repeated his 2005 speech verbatim - nothing changed since then other than poll numbers.

Slave?

2006-01-25T19:27:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else out there feel like they're a slave?

I go to work in a car, paying for the gas, being a slave at that time to Saudi Kings. The radio is turned on, so I'm essentially a slave to the advertisements.

Then I get to work. About 1/3 of the money is for taxes, so about 1/3 of the time is for taxes. The mortgage and the various home things take up another half, so there's only about 1/3 of my salary that's actually being taken in by me. But wait, there's day care, loan repayments, car insurance.

I'm a slave. Slave on everybody!

New World Order All Over Again.

2006-01-22T19:06:00.000-08:00

It's clear our occupation of Iraq has vastly weakened the US in our relations with Iran. We've removed Iran's main enemies from the stage: Saddam, and replaced this with a shattered state which may become Shiite controled or a faction of which may become Shiite entirely. If you just look at the Shiite leaders (some of whom were and will be elected in a democratic process which is laughably seen by the Bush Defense League as a victory for the US), some/most have deep ties to Iran: education, political ties, family ties. Of course they do, Iran is a Shiite country by majority and by rule. Overall, we can see the unintended fallout of our invasion as increasing Iran's sphere of influence on the world stage. If they control or form strong ties with only the Shiite sections of Iraq, then this is a huge victory for them. Why? Because the Shiites will then control more oil. They can then play the US off Europe off China. Nice for them.

Too bad for us.

Its only that we are weaker, although that is certainly the case (and our present weakness is not only military. We now have credibility weaknesses - which now extend to other spheres like North Korea, moral weaknesses - rendition, torture, photo ops from Abu Ghraib, and influence weaknesses). It is also that Iran is so much stronger. They are stronger thanks to oil prices, removal of enemies, and expanding spheres of control.

Much of this has already come to pass. A Shiite majority has formed. Their leaders have strong Iran ties. Obviously they haven't established economic or political ties with Iran: Iraq is still an utter disaster and there's very little oil as of now. But otherwise, what's done is done, and what's to come in this regard is easy to see. This prognosticatication is that of observing Mo picking up a wrench and seeing Curly close at hand. Not hard to know exactly what's comming.

From there, things start to get really interesting. This is where prognostication starts.

And things get worse. Up until now, we've only mentioned the probable short term outcomes. Because what happens when Iran establishes friendly ties with Shiites in Iraq (perhaps even forming an annex, like the US to Guam or PR, or hell, just making them like Nevada)? Answer: the Saudi Shiites get happy. Presently we don't hear a lot about Saudi Shiites. Do you suppose the average American with yellow sticker on their SUV even knows if Saudi Arabia is a Sunni or Shiite country?

No way. It's not on Fox news. Why not?

Because the media (even the 'liberal' media) doesn't want to report on our friends, the Saudi's, persecution of the Shiites. Those are the US's buddies, and the US is in favor of democracy(!) - there's no way the US would support a country that makes being a Shiite a crime! Freedom's on the march! Except they (we) do support tyranny when it supports our interests. And there are good reasons for that - boiling down to oil. (And Iran has the audacity to hate the US - after all, its not US that persecutes Shiites in Saudi Arabia, its the US friends! They just hate our freedoms is all.)

Back on track. Eastern province of Saudi Arabia: a persecuted Shiite majority. Also an oil rich area. Also right next to a country presently called Iraq, which soon may go by Shiitistan. This is a setup for incredible instability in the region.

The US, knowing a Shiite controled section of oil in Iran, Iraq, and Eastery Saudi Arabia is the worst possible outcome, will do what they can to prevent it. Failing that, they will do WHATEVER it takes to stop it.

What will WHATEVER entail? Bad stuff. We've made a mess of the region, and another mess of an intervention may be required to prevent Shiite oil control. As I see it, this could be one of a few options:

1. Aid the Saudis to attack and wage genocide on the Shiites in the Eastern Province. The problem with that is that it doesn't stop Shiite control in Iraq and Iran.

2. Go to war with Iran. This may be on the table right now.

3. And I think this may be more likely: arm and train the present Sunni insurgents. Of course, we'll have to call them freedom fighters at that point, but they'll be the same people. And they'll be just as evil and horrible, except they'll be our evil and horrible people (just like Saddam was). Already, why do we think the US favors the Sunnis participation in Iraqi government? Don't Americans find this odd, since we also know that the Sunni insurgents are responsible for thousands of our soldier's lives? One reason is the hope that a Sunni in power could help deal with the insurgents. Another is to put a stumbling block in the way of the Shiites.

4. Or do the same with the Kurds, but then you'd have to convince them that they should have anything at all to do with the rest of Iraq. And the Kurd's best option is to accept partial autonomy from the Shiite majority and stay the fcuk out of Baghdad.

Notice the best 'solution' to the problem? At present, the best we can do is to promote a brutal Sunni to take power from a majority of Iraqis. That sounds a lot like Iraq in the year 2000, doesn't it? But then, of course, Iraq circa 2000 would be a qualitative improvement over Iraq circa 2005, especially considering the prospects.

I'm a doctor, but if you pay attention, you don't have to be in the CIA to diagnose these symptoms.

End of Terrorism?

2006-01-18T18:51:00.000-08:00

If you were to ask an average red stater, "What is the number one problem facing the US at the moment," there's a good chance they'd tell you its terrorism. Is that correct? Because I suspect that while terrorism will continue to be a problem, it is certainly not a problem on the level on the level of other threats to America: starting with the British, going through a civil war, facing down communism. I suspect terrorism, in the grand sum of history, will not rise out of other present threats and general problems of the US: financial problems of macro and micro economic conditions, environmental problems including global warming, health care, and education.

That would have been impossible to say 3 years ago, but it very well may be the case. On the notion, however, that terrorism is the leading threat (and not only leading, on a higher level of threat altogether), Bush has frightened the nation into a pre-emptive war. He has spied on Americans without warrents. And he's taken a lot of vacation.

But what will happen when terrorism goes back to a low level of buzz, periodically rising in intensity? The platform that's been used and abused by Bush will be shown to be a foundation made of paper.

Sharon

2006-01-07T21:02:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit shocked about this. Overall, Sharon is VIP casualty. Here's the story that I can put together. This is my speculation only. I actually have less facts at my disposal than usual because I don't watch TV.

He's a 77 year old obese man who probably at least has one of the vascular risk factors that give rise to strokes, heart attacks, and dead black toes: high blood pressure, impaired glucose, and high cholesterol. He has a distant history of smoking (I'm actually not sure of that). As is no surprise to anyone who's staffed an ER for more than a day, such a person had a stroke. He was lucky. Although the stroke stole his language and right side motor function, the embolism no doubt dissolved nearly immediatly, leaving dysfunctional neurons, not dead ones. He recovered within the next few hours.

Stroke. It occurs when a blood vessel gets filled with something that doesn't let blood flow to the brain. The problem is either in that vessel, a feeding blood vessel, or the source of all blood vessels: the heart.

By the age of 77, being obese, one would expect an above average amount of plaque within Sharon's blood vessels. We don't have the information about this. We only know that he had a PFO, or a hole in the heart.

WOW! That's pretty scary. Having a hole in your heart. That's something that really sick babies get surgery for! It's scary, until someone tells you that 1/4 of all people have one. And that most people go through their entire lives without it being a problem at all. And that they have to be huge to be a significant problem. And that if Sharon made it 77 years with no problem, or even 40 years with no problem, then his hole probably wasn't a problem.

But Sharon is a VIP. So VIPs need to get problems fixed. Thus he was fully anti-coagulated (blood thinned) to prepare for a surgery to fix the 'problem' that would be utterly and rightly ignored were anyone else to go to that hospital. This has actually been studied. About 3 years ago a study came out that showed that full anti-coagulation is no better than aspirin in preventing strokes that are associated (note the word choice) with PFOs. So placing him on anti-coagulation was done so with no good data, and with some contrary data. Also, there is no data on getting a PFO closed for stroke prevention. The studies are underway.

And he suffered a brain hemorrhage while on the blood thinners. This is pretty horrible. But Sharon's story gets worse.

The OR. The story of hemorrhage and surgery is appealing. Blood in brain, take it out, brain gets better. Except it doesn't work that way. Blood in the brain is bad, but surgery in the brain is probably worse. The trials have been negative unless there is so much blood that the brain starts to get pushed out of the holes in the head.

So Sharon goes under the knife. Three times.

Uggh.

Well, there's still some hope. Not much, but perhaps the hemorrhage was small.

End of Terrorism?

2006-01-06T14:36:00.000-08:00

Bush Resolutions

2006-01-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

I happened upon this when a list of Bush's 2006 resolutions fell off his desk, got swept up by an illegal immigrant, and deposited in my office mailbox. Without further ado, here is the transcript as I found it:

My resolutions, by George W Bush.

1. Was speaking to Zalmay Khalilzad the other day. I call him Zanny Zal Khalbob. He's telling me about 6 billion dollars spent per day or per week or something like that, failed energy department this, failed police that, insurgent attacks increasing from 30 to 100 per day, happy Iranian Islamofascists, and failed US geopolitical objectives. Resolution number one: stop talking to Zanny Zal Khalbob. Resolution number next: failing that, fire Khalbobo but award him Medal of Freedom (which still won't get him into heaven because he's a Moslem).

2. Was on vacation over the last week while US problems grew. When I'm on the job, US problems grow. When I'm on vacation, US problems grow. So they grow, in what you could say, irregardlessness of me. Why don't people get that? Resolution number 2: take more vacation. Resolution number 2A: have shill ask me about that point in an unscripted town hall meeting.

3. Katrina revealed deep levels of incompetence within my administration to public perception. These deep levels of incompetence stretched all the way throughout the chain of command and the perception is that they included me. When the next disaster comes, we need to change this. Resolution number 3: ban media reporting of disasters. In fact, with Judy Miller, who I call 'I'm at your Tiller Miller,' gone, we're gonna need to put more of these journalists on the payroll.

4. This Plame scandal thing has broughten shame upon my administration. I need to fix that. Resolution number 4: find a scapegoat for the Plame scandal thing - like Miers – she’ll take it, again, and she'll like it.

5. Social security crisis, or at least I was told it was a crisis. Hum... Resolution number 5: follow up on crisis after vacation.

6. Popularity. After 911 I was popular. Everyone liked me. Even the cool senators. Resolution number 6: appear to be effective in another emergency that I failed to prevent. Note: ask Cheney to devise a problem I could solve. (Is gay marriage still a problem?)

7. Every time I turn on the news I seem to hear about 'no ties between Saddam and 911.' 'No WMD in Iraq.' Didn't I say there were ties and WMD? Resolution number whatever: edit that out when I said there were. Delete keys. See above on those journalists.

8. This wiretap scandal thing. It is so wrong for someone to have every word recorded for future reference. Resolution next: no more press conferences or talks with my media buddies. And no more talking where I go on record with no prepared vague speeches about 'freedom' and 'victory' and 'peace' and 'war on terror.' In fact, I'm going to be as quiet as a 'church' mouse except when I have to scapegoat some intern or Miers for Plame scandal thing.

9. Iraq is such a drag these days. Nothing but failure. After I stop talking to Khalzibobo it’s still going to be bad. I can't stop those damn Intel briefings that keep telling me what a mess I've made of things over there. Resolution number I think we're on number 4: find scapegoat for Iraq and make them deal with it. Like my boy Rumsfeld. Or my father. My real father (Jesus, I love you).

10. When I came to office I had grand hopes that education would be an important part of my, what you would call, legacy. It is supposed to be important, but I keep hearing that China, France, Germany, and Cuba are kicking our behinds on school tests. Resolution: import students from these countries and make them live in the land of freedom. Resolution E (for education) - dash - b: export American children to Cuba and France and make them live there, particularly anyone who might grow up to vote for democrats.

11. Bin Laudin is still on the FBI's most wanted list. In fact, he's number 2! Right behind some other evil doer who's free to come and go as he pleases. Instead of focusing on my failures, let's focus on what's going right in the war on evil. Resolution next: replace Bin Laudin with a terrorist we've already captured, like Cindy Sheehan.

12. My stock portfolio is doin' fine, thanks to the rising fortunes of Halliburden and oil. However, I look at my assests and I don't see enough diversification into China - and they now own more of America than Americans do, while the dollar is gonna tank like a Sherman. Resolution number I think 5: invest more of my money into the Chinese Yen.

13. Back to Iraq. I like seeing those funny looking brown people vote. Resolution 8: Hold monthly Iraqi votes. Let's let some freedom ring in that godforsaken hellhole.

14. Democrats are pretty horrible. Resolution 9: can I do anything about that?

15. OK. Terry Schrivo, who I call TS (that stands for Totally Screwed). That was a big mistake. Resolution number 10: never get up at 2 AM again for ANYBODY. It really cuts into my workouts.

16. So I admit it: McCain may know something about torture. AND he's against it. Resolution number 11: challenge that McCain to a mountain bike race to settle this thing once and for all (make sure you beat him - weren't his legs broken - make sure his bike sucks anyway).

17. Speaking of torture: these so called secret overseas prisons in Poland do seem bad when they are no longer secret. Resolution number 12: keep secret overseas prisons secret! In fact, the first rule about secret prisons is that you don't talk about secret prison torture. Resolution number 12S: send that on memo to staff.

18. My buddies are my buddies. My buddy's buddies are my buddy's buddies. We're all going to heaven anyway through Christ's love (so what I call these 'worldly things' we do now don't really matter). And yet some evil doers would call my buddy's buddies cronies. Resolution number 13: Invest some startup money to Brownie's new disaster business - God knows they'll be plenty more disasters. God knows this because I know this.

19. Smearing enemies has worked for me before. Let's see, there's McCain. Gore. Kerry. Resolution number 14: let's start smearing Bill Clinton. I'm sure something will go wrong that we can blame him for. And that could come in handy.

20. Russia is more of a dictatorship than ever. Iran is evermore islamofascist as it drools over Iraq, which isn't even making oil these days. Yemen is a country with a funny name that we could make fun of, and where I think Bigfoot lives. North Korea is a evil doer. All those places where tyranny is on the march. Meanwhile, what you could call 'my diplomacy,' has failed about 300% when it comes to Latin America. That, even though I am what you would call 'fuerte hablo espanol' and it hasn't stopped me from failing, even with these, our brown and short brothers in Christ (by way of the false path of the papists). Resolution number 10: no need for me to learn Russian for the USSR, Moslem for Iraq, or Asian for North Korea - so scratch this resolution off the list already!

And those are my top ten resolutions for the great year of our lord in Christ's 2006, and my 6th year of sovereignty over the great free land of the Americas, may god greant her what I call 'victory,' 'peace,' and 'war on terror,' forever.

Bonus resolution: I figured out how to get out of Vietnam, so I'm sure as heck gonna figure out how to get out of Iraq. Resolution B (that does what you would call 'stand' for 11): send other people to stay the course, I need the vacation time.

Motor Neuron Disease

2005-12-26T20:25:00.000-08:00

Is also known, in common parlance, as Lou Gerhig's disease. We don't know why, but the motor neurons die. Because these neurons send their tiny tendrils to muscles, muscles that move, muscles that breath, muscules that talk, as they die, the patient no longer move, no longer talk, and ultimatly, no longer breath.

When I was in medical school I'd wonder at this. Text books would use emoting language of "this dreadful progressive and fatal disease" to describe it. These test books were otherwise without prosody.

Today, the day following X-mas (as a secularist I am apparently waging war on X-mas and those with the bad taste to ever say "Christmas" to me, which includes my lovely neighbor, who I promptly waged war on by sharply slapping her 80 year old face - kidding), I diagnosed ALS.

Its my least favorite thing. But the woman was a classic. It doesn't matter that she's a widow. It doesn't matter than she raised 4 kids afterwards. It doesn't matter that her fingers are twists from arthritis. All that matters is that she has a progressive history, weakness in all 4, and evidence of denervation throughout. Her neurons are dying. She's fucked. Utterly and completly fucked. She'll see all lost. Movement. Speech. Breathing.

She sat in the fucking office and cried. I can't do anything! A tissue will not help her neural tissue grow. I can't do anything. Except come home and drink some wine. She went home as well - to her children. All's lost, but slowly. A degenerating bit of tissue here, a slow death there.

OK. Sorry for that. Fucking ALS. I'd like to kill it.

Abuse of Power

2005-12-20T00:47:00.000-08:00

The more I think about this the more uncomfortable I get with it.

Not only is Bush acting against the very letter of the constitution (unless you are a highly imaginative constitutional activist), but he's doing so for no good reason that we can see. I'm uncomfortable because if this is the legal advice Bush is getting, then he needs some smarter crony-lawyers. Did he think this was going to stand up to the light of day?

OK, so that stuff has been mentioned before. But here's a question to the conservatives, and not only the rabid ones like CJ who do disservice to the foundations of conservatism: what happens in 2008 should a liberal's liberal get elected. Let's just say its our worst fear, the pendulum swings the other way: Michael Moore is president of the US. Or Al Franken. Or whoever you hate.

Now Michael Moore has the power to wire tap without warrents. Do you think he will restrain himself, say, from wiretapping the NRA? Presently, how could Bush possibly restrain himself from wiretapping the anti-war movement? Is this something we want the executive branch to own now, in 3 years, or in ten?

So simply said, this is an abuse of power. Bush went way to far. This needs to be reigned in now.

Furthermore, as the days go on, Bush's defense of this entire thing sound more and more hollow. I'm no lawyer, but I can see the problems with Gonzales' legal thinking from a mile away. By voting for the invasion of Afghanistan, Congress magically gave Bush carte blanche to flout the 4th amendment? To take such generalities and make it fit with breaking not only the Constitution, but specific laws is just amazing in its shamelessness.

If there was a single legit reason for this, I think we'd have heard it by now.

I was wrong to give him any benefit of the doubt. Sadly, this just fits into the pattern of behavior we've seen throughtout Bush's tenure: failure after failure, shame after shame.

Bush Speak

2005-12-18T18:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I think Bush convinced me. He convinced me that we should pull out of Iraq. While arguments, good ones, deeply good ones, may be made both ways, I no longer believe that we can win in Iraq. Because of this, because Iraq will descend into civil war when we leave next month, next year, or next decade, we could make one final push while we still have the political will (we currently spend 6 billion in Iraq per month) to achieve some sort of stable and functional state (note the lack of further adjectives like democratic), so that we can leave.

I used to believe that because Iraq is a failed state, meaning it has no infrastructure that is viable, we need to stay there to make sure that Iraq can survive at all. I still believe that under the very best circumstances we ought to stay in Iraq. However, under Bush, we are hardly dealing with the best circumstances. His presence and leadership, far from helping matters, makes this situation more hazardous.

He proved the danger of his worldview in his speech tonight. I'm worried when he says "now there are only two options before our country — victory or defeat."

That is a scary thought and all Americans ought to recognize it for what it is: the certainty of the fanatic. That is a thought that ought to repulse all Americans. Bush is saying (one can only hope he is lying) he will use his power to achieve total victory in Iraq. Total victory? We don't even know what that looks like for Iraq. I'm not sure we know what that looks like since Japan surrendered to the US. We get total victory when we use antibiotics to treat pneumonia. We get total victory when we prevent a young man from smoking, thus preventing the lung cancer.

How are we to get total victory in Iraq? There is the near certain law of diminishing returns. Bush has no problem killing US soldiers and Iraqis to obtain a 100% victory. Could he perhaps not spend 100 extra soldier's lives to achieve a 99% victory? Such dogmatism, and the ability to subsume the value of human life into overarching, and perhaps impossible goals, especially in one so powerful as Bush, is a terrifying thing. Bush will sacrifice our soldiers to his greater good, failing to see this in terms of cost/benefit, in terms of goals, nor even in terms of reality.

Good leadership is based on reality. Reality, as we all know it, is that we have to give up on dreams and magical thinking. We need to make difficult decisions that save lives to get the best outcome we can. We cannot have a leader who cherry picks poll data to form his reality ("Today in Iraq, seven in 10 Iraqis say their lives are going well," but not talking about the 7/10 who want Americans to leave). We can't have a leader who gives Americans a false choice (either fight in Iraq or you don't care about terrorism) as though they were 3 year olds. For this job we need the best of circumstances. We need a great leader, but we only have Bush.

I used to think we needed to stay in Iraq because of Bush's past failures as a leader, as a president, and as a man. Now I think we need to get out of Iraq to prevent Bush's future failures.

Illegal Wiretaps?

2005-12-17T20:55:00.000-08:00

Breaking news: Bush admits to authorizing illegal wiretaps on U.S. citizens after September 11.

I have mixed feelings about this and I'm not entirely sure where I stand. I'm in favor of getting information from that computer back in the US: clearly. I'm not sure this is SUCH a big deal if it can be shown that getting a warrent is overly difficult in cases where a potential threat may be eliminated. I have absolutly no idea how these things work, and my ignorance in these matters makes me less apt to cast stones until more information is on the table.

I'm concerned, however, for two related reasons. First impressions/concerns if you will, despite ignorance in judicial procedures for wire tapping/whatever.

The first is that Bush appears to be presently disregarding the laws of the land by some sort of executive over-ride. In terms of terrorism and 911, I quite simply do not see the need to do this when our present laws allow for it - above board. So that's my real area of concern: that these actions seem allowable aboveboard - so why are they occuring illegally?

My second area of concern is due to the fact I can't imagine secretly violating civil rights stops with a potential terrorist. Power corrupts. If Bush was willing to disregard the law when it comes to illegal phone taps of terrorists, then there is a terrible temptation to do the same for other matters.

As to the question as to if a president can or cannot break a law, I think the national security/classified information song has been sung before, by Nixon, among others. Our judicial system has jurisdiction over the president. No-one is above the law (See movie by same name) in this country. And if Bush did authorize illegal wiretaps, then its not difficult to see that as an illegal action.

But I'm still highly uncertain as to many things: letter vs. spirit of the law, the depth that this goes to (are we talking thousands of times, or one here and there?), and extenuating circumstances.

Overall, I have a feeling that either way, Bush isn't done shaming our nation and himself.

News

2005-12-11T20:54:00.000-08:00

Daily Iraqi death count:
- Eary 2004: 26
- This fall: 64

And this is a fitting statistic in light of Bush and his "Plan for Victory" speech last week. Bush has the audacity to say, "We will never accept anything less than complete victory," but he tells us neither what complete victory is, nor what it will entail. We can only guess. But never fear, the real reason he doesn't elaborate is because even he knows that we know this is a lie. His administration is working overtime to get the soldiers off the ground by 2006 and certainly by 2008, come hell or islamofascism.

Bush has about a 40 percent approval rating, but only 25% of Americans think Bush has a clear plan for Iraq. That's actally in quote: "a clear plan for Iraq."

What must these 25% think? Or HOW must these 25% think. Actually, forget it all, did these 25% think? These are the true believers. They will swallow any lie. They know only that Bush is good, and for them, that appears to be enough.

But think about this, because it is telling. Bush recently released a 25 page paper with much media shock and awe: the "unclassified version" of our Iraq strategy dating back to "2003."

Another lie (of course), but an interesting one. A telling one. After some e-detective work, the NY Times discovered that our "unclassified" Iraq strategy was written by a man named Dr. Feaver. Dr. Feaver is an academic who has written papers about the public opinion of war, not a war strategy! He is a PR stratigest!

And there you have it. This is perhaps the lowest point a president can sink.

Vietnamese Grocery.

2005-12-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

Went to the Vietnamese Grocery next to a hospital I cover. Their produce section is a normal size, but seems to have more wonderfully real smells of mint and other sharper smells of what I can only think may be lemon grass and various choys. I can only identify every other food, but they're all labeled in Vietnamese. It’s easy to focus down on the lovely colored and textured fruit. So easy that it becomes difficult to look around me at the young and the ancient and no-one in between as the Vietnamese shop.

They are all lovely, thin; putting bunches of green leaves into bags and carts.

The fish. The ones on ice are done. They stare off past me. The catfish are alive and swim over each other in a tank. In groups of 5 they get pulled out, immolated, and then laid out on the ice. I got three huge sections. Two tilapia as well. They include the heads in the bad. The men are covered in their work. They are as lean and quick as whippets. The bags carry liquid inside and outside. The grip of the bag is damp. There is none of the plastic separation between you and the animal.

I've already passed five bean curd foods, but stop for fresh tofu. Its 20 cents per pound more than the tofu we normally get, so I live large. The fresh tofu is warm and because it is enclosed in a yellowed water, I get the impression I'm holding a bag of urine. Later I'm to find the tofu not exactly tasteless, like water is not exactly tasteless, and composed of a firm external texture and nearly molten inner texture. There are crevices within the tofu that catch the soy sauce and vinegar nicely.

I failed to look for more tofu, but did look for bean curd to make soup. This is known to be very good and I got a tub full.

I wandered through rice cakes, and rice noodles, in all their wide, thin, soft, hard, colored combinations. They sell all parts of pigs and cows there. How many sorts of tripe can there be? I counted two. Pork liver sausage? I passed.

The checkout was as western as the back was eastern. I could have picked up a Coke, Pepsi, Kit Kat, or Snickers. I passed.

The person in front of me bought many vegetables, many teas, unidentifiable dried mushrooms (I think), and lychee. I love lychee, sweet mucus of the gods. The old couple behind me bought many vegetables, unidentifiable dried meats (fish?), and unidentifiable red meat cuts.

I was sorry to pay because I was sorry to leave. In total, I count the hour or so passed in the grocery time well spent. The result is delicious.

Oh yeah, Vietnamese sandwiches need but one word: yum!

Mold Mold on the Wall.

2005-12-10T19:18:00.000-08:00

Water: bringer of life and destruction. We have a leak behind a wall, which has produced a lovely stain along some no-longer-drywall. The stain is composed of at least 20 strains of mold. Really, it is an ecological wonder.

We must, however, wage genocide on the mold. The mold has declared war and we will answer in kind. We will act to shut off its source of water. It will have no safe haven in the wall, especially after we remove the wall. And we will hunt down the spores of mold. We will possibly create new prisons for the mold. Yes, this will mean that some of my freedoms over some weekends might be put on the back burner, but I will overcome.

Microsoft Monster

2005-12-10T19:06:00.000-08:00

I have trouble with downloads, but after steeling myself, I downloaded Microsoft's desktop search. It's amazing. Good on them. In 10 years they will own Google.

Google itself is a phenomenon I cannot understand. Yes, they do a good search. Yes, they make money. But one click away is Microsoft's new search software. And if it searches the net as well as it searches my computer, then it also rocks. How in the world is Google worth 1/2 Microsoft in stock value? It makes no sense. None at all.

So as you can see, I haven't made any money at all on Google's ascent. But I plan on loosing no money when they tank.

OK. That was a boring tangent.

Flower Mythology

2005-12-08T10:39:00.000-08:00

At first there was the Mother, and that was everything. The Great Mother needed neither water nor sun nor food, because the Great Mother was both water and sun and food.

This was the time of the Great Harmony, because the Mother contained everything within her in exactly harmonious proportions. Water in Harmony to soil. Sun to leaf. Root to air. Food to plant. The Mother contained all things in Harmony, and so contained even Harmony itself.

The Mother had need of pruning, for all growth needs control. Growth in Harmony to trimming and decay. The trimming came from the eaters.

One eater, named Mebi, began talking to the Mother. He asked her to grow something beautiful and new. And so the Mother grew a flower and it was something both beautiful and new. Mebi examined the flower and ate from its nectar and in so doing, he pollinated the flower.

All pollinated flowers go to seed.

Mother’s seeds were something else new. But they were not in proportion. Instead, the seeds consumed the Great Mother. Where there was sun, there were seeds. Where there was water, there were seeds. Where there was soil, there were seeds. Where there was leaf, there were seeds.

There were more seeds than there is pollen in the world and they spread throughout the world. The seeds began to grow. Those who came from Mother’s sun became sun. Those from moon, became moon; water, water; flower, flower, Air, air; plant, plant. And Eaters. Eaters became eaters, and the eaters of eaters.

The most important seeds retain the Great Mother’s shape and still flower. They are blessed by mother because they can make food from the sun, but their flowers are pale imitations of Mother’s first flowers. Degenerated things, requiring the sun to be seen, air to be smelled, and eaters to be pollinated.

Mother was a paradise, with everything in Harmonious proportions, until the seeds brought in a new world. Harmony was lost. Since the seeds, Harmony is found only if each of the seed descendants re-united in Harmonious proportions. Enough water, enough air, sun, food, plants, and enough eaters.

This is a blessing.

Lilly was bored by the story. She did not feel for one instant that her petals were degenerate things. Neither did Illy.

Cute

2005-12-06T15:23:00.000-08:00

In the holiday season, my 3 yo daughter said something funny and cute. At the time we were talking about presents for X-mas and I was trying to decrease her desire for material goods by asking her why, exactly, she wanted things. Here is her response for your enjoyment:

"Everything I want, I want to have."

Well, I guess I'm no different.

So in other news, about 3 months ago I interviewed for another job. I interviewed at three places, liked them all, and chose one. I'm moving. It's a multifactorial decision, as they all are. Now I'm gathering loose ends, doing an occasional clinic and floor service, and writing up some papers. Really boring, but one of the worst things about really boring things is that they take up one's time.

I'm also trying to make the flower story a bit better. I've given them a mythology, which I'll publish soon. Obviously they were created in their god's image.

There's also an additional chapter.

OK. Bye for now, hope everyone who reads this had a good, not depressingly engorged Thanksgiving.

Another Bush Speech. Yawn.

2005-12-01T16:20:00.000-08:00

Another Bush speech. More of the same. Vague definitions of victory. No plan. But pulling out now would be bad for ill explained reasons. Those who advocate this are foolish at best, cowards at worst.

Whatever, Bush. You got us into this. And now it's your bed to sleep in. Your empty words told to a roomful of easily patriotic Naval Academy kids aren't going to get you out of your responsibility. Timing your speech on a workday morning will not prevent you from having to go to bed in your mess. Too bad we've got to sleep in it with you.

On that basis, here's what I wish Bush would have said. I know its a dream. Such candor and honesty will never be. Nevertheless, if I think for even a few moments that Bush said the following, then at least I can pretend this country is on the right course. Here's my fantasy Bush speech:

"Good morning cadets. I will dispense with further flowery words and will detail my plan in Iraq. But first, we must face the past if we are to have any hope of facing the future.

This reflection is not pleasant for me. But I made mistakes and I need to face them like a mature adult, like a man, if I am to learn from them. We went into Iraq anticipating weapons of mass destruction. There were none. We were wrong. We were wrong because of a combination of willful mistakes, internal dishonesty, and sheer incompetence. We screwed up. We screwed up by placing focus on intelligence that supported going to war, and putting contrary intelligence into the background. We did this because we wanted to bolster our case for war to Congress and the American public. Our case for war was the hope that bringing Saddam down would stabilize the region and would bring a wave of democracy to this economically vital area of the world. There were other considerations, but they were secondary: Saddam was an evil tyrant, he could have gained power in the future, and he went against American interests.

We really had high hopes. We really did. We thought the effect of the invasion would be immediate formation of a stable democracy. Unfortunately, we were radical enough to carry these plans out in 2003 with the invasion and occupation of Iraq with the best of hopes and the least of plans. These have been shattered by reality. We were wrong. We were wrong because we screwed this up as well. We screwed up by not anticipating sectarian interests, by not providing enough force immediately, and by using false models and false people.

In sum, I have failed entirely. In fact, there is not one area in Iraq, or domestically for that matter, in which I have even broken even. At this point, breaking even in Iraq is at the top of a very steep climb for us.

I apologize. I apologize to the American people for misleading them. In particular, I apologize to you, the young officers who may inherit my wicked sins.

From now on, my Iraq plan hinges on a simple goal: get us back to at least status quo. Although I have committed horrible mistakes in judgment, character, foresight, and radicalism; we must not allow the Iraqi people to pay for my sins - more than they already have. We must bring Iraq up to the level they were prior to our invasion. This is a deep American value, one I share: leave things better than you found them.

Therefore, my current plan will dispense with the pipe dreams of my administration. The pipe dreams that got us there, the pipe dreams that prevent us from moving forward. We must aim to get the most in Iraq in return for the least in terms of what matters to us: soldier's lives, soldier's limbs, and American tax money. We are currently hemorrhaging 6 billion dollars into Iraq per month. Every five thousand dollars we invest in Iraq is equivalent to the cost of educating a child for a year. We are spending 2 million yearly educations in Iraq every month! This is not acceptable.

Therefore, we will begin our bill, starting today. Iraq is an oil rich country, which is one of the reasons we invaded. They have the money to pay for our investment. It is in their ground. This bill will come due.

Meanwhile, we will allow the tribal organization of Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites to organize itself along these lines. If these three factions desire a union, then so be it. But to avoid civil war, we must divide the country into three divisions. One of these may become an Islamic theocracy along the lines of Iran. This is unfortunate, but may represent an improvement from Saddam's tyranny, or may not. In either case, our only concern is to our own national interest. And if this new state supports terrorism, then we will impose our will to the contrary.

Within the next calendar year we will drastically decrease our forces in the region. As the three new countries get up and running, sectarian strife will decrease, or will become less and less of our concern. However, by averting civil war, we will have saved literally thousands of lives.

There will be a strict timetable for our goals and withdrawal.

I now leave you young students to your studies. If you can learn anything from today’s lesson, it is that one with false pride, poor character, who places vital trust in incompetent people, will fail. For that is how I expect to be remembered in history. Remember my mistakes in your own lives, as you may perhaps make this world into a better place."

What Atheism Does for Me.

2005-11-25T01:42:00.000-08:00

It's odd that you never hear that. What atheism does for the person who believes there is no god, or even fails to believe in god. Instead, we get to hear countless testimonials about how Christianity (usually) makes these people better, more moral, more humble, more giving.

Yet I think that atheism does something for me. No, it doesn't make me moral, I went to kindergarden and was raised right for that. It makes me exactly as humble as I am naturally. I'm as giving as I would be otherwise. No, a belief or a lack of belief makes little difference to what sort of person you are. Instead, what I think Atheism does is to provide a certain gut check. Things are as they are. There is no further reality other than this life. This is all we've got. Furthermore, myths that may help you come with a price: they are false or meaningless.

I think that's an important realization.

Atheist

2005-11-23T10:13:00.000-08:00

Recent conversation with uber-religion person at work. He couldn't understand how an atheist can celebrate Thanksgiving. I know this makes no sense, but I'm going to cement my atheism into the blog now. Next I'll perhaps tackle what effect this has had on my life.

Why am I an atheist? I'll try to answer as best I can.

The intellectual level was the domain that pushed me into the resigned atheist I am now. I suppose all children are natural theists. They engage in magical thinking. Everything is due to uncaused causes. Food appears, candy goes, their subjective minds are naturally spiritual. And whatever that means, they notice that they have a subjective self. They give subjective selves to all their toys.

I'm sure I was no different, but at a pretty young age (like pre-tween) it hit me: there is a god or there is not a god. Since a god would entail all these logical problems (the problem of evil weighed on me, as did Mutual Assured Destruction) and I thought that a God, as the term was understood by other children, would surely reveal himself to me as I forsake him, there was enough evidence against God to seriously doubt his existence.

From there, these childish thoughts have become refined. But, and I guess this is a question to the religious out there, I had the sensation that if there was a God, then how could I not be aware of him? When I started to doubt, when the possibility opened up that there is no god, you know what happened both to the world and to me? Nothing. How could that be? And in a way, this confirmed for me that the possibility that there is not a god could be real.

From there, it is intellectually very easy to believe there is no God. There are wonderful intellectual proofs for things called first causes, not at all God, which have their wonderful alternative and disproofs. There's Ockham's razor. There's incompatibilities with free will, with evil, with the obvious materialism of our minds and the world, and most damning, there is the simple charge of noncognitivism (statements about god are without meaning).

Intellectually, being an atheist is wonderfully clear. Being a theist is more difficult.

Personally, within my subjective self, being an atheist is also crystal clear. There is no other. There is no-one watching. I'd guess this is what people talk about when they speak of a "spiritual level," but I'm not exactly sure. I don't think the elevator stops at this level. When I turn my eye inward, no-one talks to me. I'm here, and I'm all alone. (I'd take anything else a sign of insanity.) I have no idea what it means when people say Jesus/Allah/Budda talks to them.

Pragmatically, there are several areas open for discussion. Giving my life meaning, by positing a God who's meaning makes my life as significant as a single bacteria living in my mouth, makes no sense to me. Positing a heaven to make this life only a waiting around area for something really good - makes no sense to me. Positing an all good God with evil all around us, seems a twisted joke. I don't want to live with those thoughts. I want to live this life, not prepare for the possibility of another.

I don't find the social pressures to change these beliefs at all compelling. Kids: whatever. I'll cross that bridge. Or let the Mrs. NOS deal with it.

I don't find Pascal's wager at all compelling. If there is a god, can you imagine the humor he find in such a false belief as mine would be? If I were tempted to change my beliefs to avoid something I don't believe in, wouldn't that make a mockery of that entire belief system? If someone were to have that little character and courage and still get into heaven, doesn't that represent a pretty low bar of admittance? If that's the case, then I'm OK with hell - that's where all the interesting people are anyway.

So that's my atheistic mindset.

SUV's

2005-11-20T21:46:00.000-08:00

Is anyone else concerned?

Going on runs, bike rides, driving - SUVs are an epidemic! They are as unavoidable as they are horrible.

Here are the reasons SUVs are regretful and unfortunate:

1. Waste. I hate waste. There must be something within me that simply doesn’t like to see a lack of efficiency, which is what I see every time a single 200 pound man (or 100 pound woman) driving a 2 ton SUV passes by. It induces within me the same uneasy feeling I get when I see a refrigerator door left open, or seeing rotting food.

2. Usage. SUVs use more gas, thus supporting the tyrannies of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Kuwait, the religious theocracy of Iran. Their rich oil supply enables these countries to stay deficient in technology and culture, a phenomenon whose burden we currently bear.

3. By using more gas, SUVs expel more CO2, a greenhouse gas, which may end us as a civilization. Not now, not next year, but our grandkids and great grandkids may reap the inheritance of man made climate shifts. I’d prefer them to be spared things like famine.

4. Safety. Not only rollovers. SUVs have more mass, but are not equipped with proper safety features (that would cut into profits), they will get into more accidents. For those who do not believe this, consider the stopping power of an SUV going 40 mph vs. a Jetta. Remember that momentum is mass times velocity. And then there’s simple data: 16.4 SUV occupant deaths per 100,000 SUVs on the road, 14.8 per 100,000 car. Note that's SUV occupant deaths. Another way of saying this is that SUV occupants are 11 times more likely (relative risk) to die in an accident.

http://www.autosafety.org/article.php?scid=176&did=949

5. SUV bumpers are raised and often times raised further by bumper additions. Perfect height for the level of a child's head, should a T-bone accident occur.

6. My inconvience. The parking spaces: these spaces are not designed to handle the SUV super size.

Those are just reasons. They can be argued. Idiots tend to ignore them and go to the ‘this is America, I can dress like I want, think like I want, and drive like I want’ line. This is true. You may also burn flags if you’d like, but that doesn't mean I have to approve of your behavior. You may also beat your dog, but that doesn't mean it's responsible or ethical behavior.

I’m just concerned. I think responsibility and ethical behavior are important. And I think that driving an SUV is irresponsible on a local, political, and global level.

I’d actually like to start a group of like minded responsible drivers. I’m not a fanatic in any way, so those who are interested in damaging property - don't post. I don’t want to start a road-ELF club. I’m simply interested in hearing from other concerned people.

SUV drivers are welcome. I’m interested to hear why you made your vehicular choice, knowing all the effects that stem from owning an SUV. Email me if you’d like, or post for all to see and comment on.

Torture

2005-11-15T22:53:00.000-08:00

A current runs strong and deep in Bush defenders: they have to defend not only the failures of Bush's actions, but the failures of Bush's morals.

Is there any explanation as to why torture could be seen as something OK? The common response seems to be the non-sequitur that the really horrible Islamofascists cut people's heads off.

So as long as we just don't sink as low as they are, then we're OK? Funny standard of human behavior. I sugest that instead of using evil crazed islamofascists as our moral yardstick, we look over our history as a country. Let's go ahead. Long and hard. After all, the US has faced adversity before, and sometimes we've behaved badly. But if you look carefully, it is our history that more often than not we have risen up and overcome while maintaining our values. We have these values and I, for one, would like to remain proud of them, because they are important. And now, when faced with evil, and when faced with a challenge, I think it is much more important to maintain these values for a variety of reasons.

It's not only that the methods don't work. It's not only that they may be applied to innocents (none of these people have received trials). It's not only that there's drift towards the maximum permisiveness, when a leader says it's OK to do X, the soldier understands it's OK to to 5X. It's not only that these methods may actually hurt us in the long run by flaming anti-American sentiments (like photos of dogs at Abu-Ghraib) and providing false information. It's not only that these methods, and worse, were used by other nation states who have gone into history as examples of mass evil. It's not only that these methods are against our values as laid out by our founders, and the values that Americans should strive towards. It's not the fact that the US faced down a range from world domination to civil war without using torture. It's everything and more. It's the fact that even having this conversation lowers us. Even discussing the possibility of torture at US hands makes pride in America a hoax. This should be a notion that cannot be considered. We are Americans! Doesn't that mean a single thing to us? Or are some of us willing to rationalize that away as well?

As an American, what are we proud of? When we walk into a bar somewhere outside North America? That America tortures their enemies really well? That we draw firm distinctions between waterboarding and crushing fingers?

I guess some take refuge in a belief that they're worse than we are? Guess what: that's what they're saying too.

Return to Scheduled Programs

2005-11-09T20:19:00.000-08:00

Now that the chapters are out, I'm going to return to blogging on medicine, how horrible Bush is (do I even need to bother anymore? Everything I've feared given the potential for failure has been actualized by actual failures), and random topics.

Let's start by getting back into medicine.

My patient was a nice guy, 40 years old, and he got HIV last month. He knows exactly when. I have this entire post plotted out. It mentions how he's not alone, more gay guys are taking risks, getting HIV and other STDs. The post mentions the shame of it. Resources drained. Health goes to disease. It glosses over his carelessness and tries to do so without sounding like a Nazi, or at least a prude. Of course it fails. Idiot! What a waste! What expense! So amazingly preventable! He's old enough to have come of age in an era of HIV hopelessness. Somehow, through his 20s and 30s he remained safe and sound. And now (now?), at 40, he catches it.

Oh well.

I think of malaria and enterovirus, two conditions that kill thousands of children a day. Literally, thousands. Something like a few deaths every minute (meaning in the time it takes to read this at least a few). How many deaths could be prevented if we took 1/10 of the cost of preventing end stage disease in this man and spent it on mosquito netting?

Oh well.

The problem with human nature - it's the enemy.

Chapter 19

2005-11-07T19:14:00.000-08:00

It was Rodger who confirmed the deaths of Nime and the wasps to the flowers. Rodger had made many trips to the tree and brought most of the ripe branches back to the dam for winter food. While he did this, he found little rests with the flowers peaceful and calming. Grass was starting to fill in around the patch, and Rodger would lie on it while talking to the flowers, or just looking at their pretty shapes. Beavers cannot see colors, but they have a deeply nuanced ability to smell.

Each flower took the news of Nime’s death with a smile and a shrug. They knew Nime died in the way she wanted, and that she would not have lived to the next season, but they also knew that they were sad.

Illy’s first reaction was nearly anger, because she was too afraid to allow sadness. Her anger that Nime had allowed herself to die, that Nime would not come visiting anymore had a few sparks before they turned to the cold embers of grief. Lilly’s first reaction was fear, because she realized that beauty and cleverness and goodness is sometimes not enough. This fear took a few jabs before turning into the emptiness of loss.

Mrs. Scarlet lost some of her red with the news, and Mr. Azure gained some blue.

By then it was late in the flowering season. Even Illy and Lilly’s petals were a bit limp near the edges. Their smell was coming in now, and they spent hours smelling each other’s scent and asking Rodger about it when he came by.

Rodger thought it was a bit thin, but kept this to himself. Mrs. Scarlet thought the same, but would say “Oh, Illy’s every bit as sweet as Lilly, but while Lilly carries a hint of citrus, Illy has a hint of a complex lime.”

Neither girl could make words like Mrs. Scarlet, so they repeated what she said over and over.

The summer sun was coming stronger now. Mr. Azure could feel the energy give his roots and branches more strength. He had no doubt there would be enough energy to seed, and more than enough left over for next year’s springtime growth. More than even Illy and Lilly would need with all their yabbering.

It struck Mr. Azure that he was no longer a young plant. Within the patch, only Mr. Caruso was older, which would have been the case in most patches the land over. As Mr. Azure looked around, he noted nooks here and there where his, and other’s seedlings could take up root, if change and good wind brought them there.

Mr. Azure opened up his leaves, let the sun shine down on him, and relaxed.

The season passed. Petals dropped, seeds came, seeds dropped, the sun set early, then earilier, and then it was time to return to the deep within the Earth, for the long sleep.

Illy and Lilly were surprised to find they didn’t mind going to seed at all. Eash’s seed pods were a beautiful white, nearly crystal in form, with radial symmetric gossamer wings to catch and hold the wind. When the seeds lifted off, they thrillingly bobbed and flowed with the wind.

Illy and Lilly were sorry to see Mr. Azure’s and Mrs. Scarlet’s petals drop away, but Mr. Caruso told them that when fashions come and go, the only true fashion is change itself. This gave the girls much to think about, not the least of which was that Mr. Caruso had fashion sense.

Mr. Caruso, for his part, felt old. He felt even older than his years and by years he was old. He figured that next spring he perhaps wouldn’t pop out of the long sleep.

So when winter passed, cold and dark, the patch stayed under the ground, Mr. Caruso surprised himself by not only growing out of the ground at all, but by flowering first.

No longer first to blossom out of five, he was the first to blossom out of 20, if flowers could count that high, which they cannot. The best the smartest flower could do was to assign 2 flowers per petal, but lost count after 4 petals full.

Illy and Lilly were beautiful. Their yellow trim came in that year. Each petal had a central dot of light pink, which seemed to enlarge the base of their flower. Each was the basis of the first year flower’s envy.

Illy and Lilly enjoyed this, of course, and just as Mrs. Scarlet did, they pretended not to. Instead, each told the first year flowers how beautiful they looked. And there were some truely beautiful flowers that summer. Either way, Illy and Lilly joined Mrs. Scarlet in spreading praise as evenly as they could.

The first bee visited them early in the spring. The flowers quickly named her Lin, which was short for Pollen. Lin’s real name was Twice-left-third-last-right-without, and Lin quickly started using her nickname. And she began spending more time with the flowers, at first simply because there were so many flowers to collect from.

The flowers learned that Lin was from the same hive Nime came from. That over the last summer the Queen sheltered in a horrid little hole, but that the wasps had never been seen again. That spring the Queen re-established the hive underneath a deep rock.

The group of five flowers told the story of Nime. And The Story of Nime became much loved among the bees of the hive, even as it had already become much loved among the flowers of the patch.

The End.

Chapter 18

2005-11-07T19:13:00.000-08:00

Simon got sick first. Then he died. He’d been over at the hive where he stopped moving for a moment and cocked his head to one side, as if suddenly curious. The other wasps ignored him until he became twittery, flapping his wings weakly, and then died.

While Henry was puzzling over that, the other two became twittery, their movements came to them in brief twitches that caused them to move uselessly in circles. Then they died.

Henry was still alive. He confirmed this for a moment. And after several more moments confirmed that he was not about to die. He monitored himself for the twitches. They did not come. He was not going to die.

From her hiding spot, Nime saw the particularly fearsome wasp with the particularly black head and yellow face hadn’t had breakfast. She prepared herself.

It didn’t take Henry long to figure out there was a new smell on top of the glazed honey. It was sweet and the honey’s sweetness masked its scent. Henry thought the honey would do the same to the poison’s flavor. He knew the food had been tainted. Yet he survived! He could not quite believe this fortune, even as he looked about.

What would he do now? It seemed reasonable that deeper into the hive lay pure honey, so he went about excavating for more.

That’s when the bee attacked him.

Bees are fearsome creatures. Nime had her barbed stinger and he mandibles at the ready. But even as she attacked Henry from behind, she knew the fight was over. Wasps are simply more fearsome than bees.

Nime died quickly, trundled up in Henry’s long legs, while his stinger quickly entered her thorax in a single movement. The feeling of attack was so strong in her that she did not feel a thing.

Henry hadn’t noticed that her movements had seemed twitchy, nor did he note the subtle oiliness to her hind legs, nor the sweetness of her last breaths. By then Henry was hungry and the bee’s body was available without further digging in the hive.

The twitching came on slowly. Henry’s dose was smaller than the other’s. After that there was nothing to do but wait.

Chapter 17

2005-11-06T20:49:00.000-08:00

Nime learned all she needed to know from the mushroom. She flew over the grass, already in seed, waving their petals in the wind. Each seedling was ready to release thousands and thousands of pollen grains, to randomly enter the air and hit upon a sticky egg, from which a new blade of grass might grow.

Nime hurried home. Home. She had not thought of her hive as her home since the wasps attacked. Now, as she flew over her old paths towards the hive she filled with pleasure. She dipped down into the grass, flying side to side to avoid leaves and seedlings. Her cargo was clutched delicately with stiff hindlegs, as far away from her body as she could manage. It was a light load and did not interfere with her flight.

Taking a risk, she flew high into the air, then paused he beating wings to glide down to a hiding place behind a patch of grass. From here she carefully placed the package into the base of the stems of grass as they came up in a wedge, cradling the package nicely off the ground.

Her hind legs free, she climbed up the stem. The wasps were lying around on the dirt. They had excavated part of the hive so the innards lay bare. Nime had never seen the hive, she had only crawled within. To see the hive exposed to sun was disturbing.

Nime could only see four wasps. She had no way of knowing that Henry’s second cousin, Billy, had arrived and made his own claims on the honey. Billy was a great brute of a wasp, who was both admired and hated on this basis. Billy was used to getting his own way, much like Matthew. When Billy and Matthew fought, both died of their wounds.

Henry had never been hungry in his life. Or so it seemed to him. He ate now for amusement, for sensation, because honey was the closest thing he’d tasted that carried him back to The Sweet. He had enough of it to survive the winter and next winter. He flew to the hive and poked his leg through a crust of honey and chewed on it absently, watching fresh honey well up from the hole his leg left.

Almost Sweet.

Nime waited a long long time. When darkness first comes, insects become dormant. As the wasps drifted to sleep, they dropped into the depression they’d carved into the hive. They began to sleep.

Nime felt the need for dormancy. It was in her body, but more pressing was the need to act. Just when the delightfully heavy feeling would have made it impossible to move, she crawled down into the grass and retrieved the bundle.

It was becoming difficult to move. Nime opened the leaf, one of Mr. Azure’s, which held the oil slicked flesh of the mushroom named Sean.

With only a glance at the wasps, Nime took the material out of the wrapping. She held it out by its white underside, where the tree bark had pressed into it.

She crept to the hive, afraid to stop, every movement needing a great effort. She crawled past the wasps, to the combs. Once there she rubbed the mushroom’s oil onto the food, letting the oil mix with the crusted honey.

Nime let her head bob for a moment and for perhaps a span of several seconds drifted. She woke with a start, and for a moment her mind was clear. In that moment she noted the wasps still sleeping and the hiding spot a short crawl away. Then fatigue took her again and all movement was a struggle. She crawled up to her hiding spot, pushed the mushroom away from her, and then sleep took her.

Chapter 16

2005-11-06T20:47:00.000-08:00

Henry was the leader of the pack of wasps. Henry was his name, and that’s what the others called him, or they called him H, which didn’t refer to Henry, but to Helmet. This was on account of his head’s unusual markings. Instead of being yellow on the top of his head, his head was black, while his high cheeks were yellow. This gave him a helmeted look.

He liked this name, but pretended the H was for Henry. He knew that if his underlings got familiar with him, then this could be his disadvantage.

If you were to ask Henry, or H, what the best moment of his life was, he would tell you easily. He would tell you about when he found The Sweet.

He and his brother were flying into the woods one day when they caught the smell of The Sweet. Henry had never smelled such an aroma before or since. It was just a pure sweet smell that captivated them with its strength and simplicity. It was so strong that it seemed to give the air a taste.

It came to them from a pasture, and when they flew towards it, it got stronger. Within the pasture, they could see humans.

Wasps are confident creatures, as is anything that wears loud colors, but humans give even confident creatures pause.

Henry was young and especially confident. Any pause he made was made with the knowledge that his brother was beside him to see and note that pause. His brother, meanwhile, knew the same, that Henry would see and note the slightest hesitation on his part. And so neither paused for even a moment.

Meanwhile, the scent grew even stronger, until it filled their minds. It became the only thing they could perceive, blocking out the humans as a strong light blocks out vision.

The Sweet came from a red object, which you and I would know as a soda can. Each, ignoring the humans, crawled inside and found purchase upside-down on the metal sides to drink deep from the sweetest nectar either had known. If the smell of The Sweet gave taste to the air, then the taste of The Sweet gave ecstasy to the soul. They drank deep. And then drank deeply again.

Henry could still feel the liquid as it bubbled off his opposing mouthparts. The bubbles broke the surface inside the can, which was curiously cool. He could still recall feeling normal for a moment, savoring the taste, simply relishing the pureness of sensation offered by The Sweet, before the effect began to work.

At the onset, he was such a fool as to not know what was happening. He simply felt good. Then the main wave crashed upon him. The chemical mixture, in a perfect note, struck a chord of euphoria within his thorax.

Never before, never since, had he felt like that. The thought came to him unbidden, that the same must be the case of his brother. He looked at his brother and looked at the liquid and took another sip. He knew it could clear his mind for what would come.

His brother could steal The Sweet from him. This had to be prevented.

That’s exactly when the sensation of movement broke through the taste and smell of The Sweet. The human had picked up the can and tilted it back. The next events were difficult to recall, like a hole filled in with dirt. The liquid sloshed and Henry became mindful that the liquid could drown as easily as feed. The hole above closed off. Henry pushed his brother down while stabbing blindly with his stinger into the soft flesh that obstructed the hole.

Things happened fast after that, but his next memory is of flying, outside the can, in the sunlight, flying away, with the taste of The Sweet still on his chitin.

He didn’t see his brother again. And he never so much as smelled The Sweet again.

Chapter 15.

2005-11-05T01:44:00.000-08:00

Nime’s next thought came to her as a calculation. Her problem was 5 wasps. Making 5 wasps into 0 wasps was 5-5. Suddenly she saw the mushroom’s poison as her subtraction sign.

She flew back to the patch, to tell them about the mushrooms.

“So they’ll be OK. They can slowly creep into the shade. Rodger isn’t going to take the trunk of the tree, only the top. They’ll eat the tree for years to come, with plenty of shade and rainy days.”

All the flowers shivered at the sound of shade.

Nime told the flowers about the poison mushroom. This thrilled Illy and Lilly. Neither had secretions, even non-poison secretions. They delighted in the descriptions of the poison collection, thick and oily, cupped in the mushroom’s flesh and overflowing into a central pool.

It was deliciously repulsive.

“Monstrous,” Illy said.

“What?” Lilly hadn’t heard.

Illy repeated herself. It seemed even worse when she said it again, “Monstrous creature.”

“I’m sure they’d find you equally unappealing,” Nime said under her breath. “Do you know what this means?”

The flowers looked at her, then at each other, and then at Mr. Azure, who shook his stem no.

“If I get the wasps to eat the poison mushroom, they will die.”

“But how will you...”

“I’ll bring it to them and poison the hive. I can move. I can bring.”

And with that, Nime flew towards the mushrooms.

Nime knew about poison. All bees knew about pollen that, attached to your hind legs, could be carried back to the hive, spread around, and give everyone the same sort of cold.

But this was something else entirely. Nime flew to the red mushroom.

“How poisonous are you?”

“Very.”

“Against insects?”

“I used to have a moth problem. You wanna taste and find out?” The mushroom spoke proudly, as people can when they talk about themselves. Nime knew several moths, although not the tree varieties. Bees and moths both seek out flowers and Nime never trusted moths, with their wings tucked slyly behind their backs. Still, she shivered at the thought.

“What happened to them?”

“They eat, then they die.”

Nime shook her head, “No. How? Quick, slow? What happens after they eat?”

“Depends on the dose. Sometimes they give a little flutter and that’s it. Others get wobbly for a longer time and then drop off. It’s nothing exciting.”

“How long does it take to work?”

“After it’s in the system, as quick as a falling branch.”

Chapter 14

2005-11-04T12:33:00.000-08:00

Mr. Azure did enjoy the sun, but he did also worry, as was his habit. The threat may be gone, but habits linger. Rodger felled the tree perfectly. Mr. Azure could see that. The tree had fallen to their eastern side, missing the patch by many patch lengths.

After the tree fell, Rodger nosed along the long trunk, until he came to the first secondary branches. He took a nibble and moved onto even higher branches.

Mr. Azure watched as Rodger shuffled past, then back to the patch. “Just as I thought. Nice and ripe.” Rodger knew that long after the trunk goes, the tops go on a bit longer. He told Mr. Azure, “Just like a dam, they never give out at once. One section here, one there.” Seeing this had no impact on Mr. Azure, who had never seen a dam, nor could even imagine one, Rodger found himself at a loss. “Well, things tend to happen in sections. That’s my experience.”

Mr. Azure thought it best not to mention that when Rodger left, he had said he was just going for a look around. This look around ended in the felling of the entire tree, not just a section. Instead Mr. Azure asked, “What will you do now?”

“Well, I’ll chisel the tertiary branches off, drag them down the hill to my dam. Some of it’ll be food, some structure, some will start as structure and end as food. My work is only just starting.”

“Hum. Yes. I see.” Mr. Azure had nothing else to say.

Realizing this, Rodger said, “Well, I’ll be off. It was nice meeting you,” and as animals do, he walked away.

After the fall, Nime flew to the tree, which was now only a few meters off the ground at the highest. She started to peek in and around the branches for flowers.

Max produced small flowers, already turning to seed. Each was mute, none compelling. They were pretty enough, but they were all the same. Nime didn’t care for their taste even before Max got sick. She supposed they pollinated themselves.

There was only one thing for her. Revenge. Rodger had served himself, not her. There had been no trade. No large animal had helped the flowers for the honey, instead, a large animal helped the flowers for himself.

She was going to go talk to Rodger about it, and she flew towards the trunk, where the mushrooms lived.

From the trunk came a pleasant “Hello there.”

“Hello.” Nime nearly kept flying, but the mushroom was a bright red in color, which had always been Nime’s favorite, even before Mrs. Scarlet. Nime hadn’t met this mushroom before.

The mushroom asked, “What’s so good about it?”

“Pardon me?”

“Didn’t you say good morning?”

Nime was confused. “No, I said hello.”

“Oh, sorry. Yes, it has been one of those days. But we’ll be alright. We feed off dead things and something’s always dying. Or is already dead. Either way. Plants make food, we eat them, same’s you, right?”

Nime had never considered this before. The fact she shared this with the mushrooms was obvious and could not be argued against. Although we may want to, it is difficult to argue against things that are true. The only thing to do was to say something a bit rude, which Nime did, “Well, you’ve certainly got the sun in your eyes now I’m afraid.”

“It is bright out here, now that you mention it. But there’s no sense in being afraid. We’ll creep around to the other side naturally. We’re pretty good at creeping. Ever seen that? I mean, a creeping fungi? Stick around. We’ll loose some of the moss though.”

The moss looked vaguely ill to Nime, but she did not know moss well. Within the week most of the moss had migrated under the lee of the tree.

“I’m Sean.”

“Call me Nime.”

“I don’t know the time. Still morning though. So that night I didn’t pass up the message right. I knew about that. Sorry. Now we’re even in a way. You got what you wanted. It was that beaver. Damn beavers. Anyway. Just wanted to ask you why did you even give us the message? Why not just fly to the top and do it directly?”

“I’m afraid of birds.” Nime was shouting now, realizing the mushroom was deaf. “Birds live in trees and can eat bees. As do tree frogs, and tree creatures.”

“Being eaten. How odd. How odd to worry! To be afraid! You go as far as you can, you pass off some of your spores, then you die.”

Nime did not share this attitude. She would never reproduce herself. She existed for the common good of the hive. “Please. Not afraid of being eaten? Even an ant could eat you now. Now that you’re not high above the ground. What is to prevent even a rabbit from coming up and eating you?” Nime was aiming her sting as best she could. She’d never need the cooperation of this miserable deaf mushroom.

The mushroom seemed to hear her perfectly for the first time. “The tree fell to the beaver, but it will now fall to the mushrooms. All things fall to the mushrooms over time. Even mushrooms ourselves. But I have no fear. I’m poisonous. No animal can eat me.”

Chapter 13

2005-11-03T11:41:00.000-08:00

The flowers were taking in some of the morning sun when the tree fell. The first crack carried through the ground and into their roots, so they all shuddered as one. As the tree fell, more fibers cracked quickly in a single triplet beat until the tree itself crashed with all its weight to the east. This sent a myriad of cracks and shudders through the earth. It was over as soon as it began, leaving small branches to come skittering down.

Illy and Lilly looked up at the sun’s shine. Their leaves tingled as they felt flushed through with energy. They both laughed and spread their leaves towards the sun. Mrs. Azure told them to keep the face of their petals at an angle to the sun, so as to avoid sun damage.

It had been years since Caruso had felt the full weight of the sun on his leaves. Instantly he felt water fill his stalk as the sun drew it off his leaves. His leaves tingled and he filled out somewhat.

He turned to the younger sprouts. They were laughing, looking around, chattering with each other and Mrs. Scarlet. Illy and Lilly were full of talk, except their long bursts of giggles. Caruso was sorry to admit to himself that he liked the sound of their babble.

“Well Mr. Azure, we seem to have done it. We really did it. The tree came down, the sun is up, and here we are to collect.”

Mr. Azure looked at Caruso kindly. Many kind words went through his mind, but the ones he spoke were, “Thank you Mr. Caruso. Thank you everyone. I’d like to say that our problem with the shade has been solved and we are free. You have all helped tremendously, especially Illy and Lilly, thank you for your ideas.”

Illy and Lilly looked at each other. The tingling on their leaves was such a new feeling that it threatened to overwhelm their senses. They did not know what tremendously was, but they knew it was good.

Illy and Lilly held each other tightly for a long time. They’d never been so happy.

Chapter 12.

2005-11-02T22:08:00.000-08:00

Rodger lumbered over to the tree. At a glance he could tell the tree was ill. A dark scar scorched down the north side and Rodger could follow the trail of mushrooms that dug into the soft, waterlogged rot until they disappeared within the leaves.

Rodger took a testing smell at the tree’s base – he was correct - rot. He moved around to the other side. A tree could survive even half rotted through, but the same musty damp smell hung there as well. He took a small bite where the wood looked whole. His teeth slid easily, too easily, through the bark and greenwood underneath. The flavor was good, strong. Beavers like the flavor of rotted wood. They call such wood ripe. Its not good for building, but the bark makes good gnawing and good winter food.

Rodger looked around at his situation. He was atop a small hill, overlooking his stream to the north.

He could also see what brought shade to the flowers. The north side of the tree was scarred, preventing growth. As a result, the tree had to spread branches southwards, leaning over as it did so. But clearly this was not working. A winter’s storm would blow the tree over. Rodger could even see where the tree would snap, about halfway up the trunk at a narrow point inhabited by three mushrooms.

Rodger looked down again at the river, he could almost make out where the river swelled before meeting his damn. It was always time to consider the next mating season, and after that came kits, the litter of 4 he’d just fathered were already out of the house, busy making their own homes along other rivers. A new batch required new food.

Rodger looked up at the leaves, down a bit to find the mushrooms. He noted one, halfway up on the tree, red underbelly, glossy sheen, sweet smell. Poison.

He knew what he had to do, so he went to work.

Chapter 11

2005-11-01T20:30:00.000-08:00

When Nime and Rodger got back to the patch, Nime made introductions. Rodger was tired from his day and allowed Nime to tell the story as he looked and snorted around.

Rodger took no interest in flowers. He certainly took no interest in the beauty or smell of flowers. He had a keen eye for wood, of course, and as a child loved following the grains of wood as they whorled around each other in some spots, and in others running straight as a whisker. His eye could send him drifting on their gently flowing currents for hours.

When he came closer to the three chattering flowers he was taken by their charm. But to a beaver, beauty is only beauty, and if it cannot be used, then it has no true purpose. So, to Illy and Lilly’s regret, he did not comment on their lovely symmetry, color, odor, or their perfectly arranged stamens (which was something they worked on in between the excitement).

Illy and Lilly tried to follow Nime as she talked about finding Rodger, but neither could pay attention to the story. They never saw such a large animal. Both were interested in his color. Without talking to each other, which would have been rude, Illy and Lilly each felt sorry for him. To go through life with only one color! And a dull brown at that? Illy and Lilly had nothing but pity for the poor dun creature.

Nime was almost done with her story. Because Illy hasn’t pain attention to the story, she interrupted with the question that everyone wanted to ask, but no-one could quite think how, “How are you going to help us, Mr. Rodger?” Illy feeling of boldness trailed off into hesitation as the animal turned his head towards her.

“Just Rodger’ll do fine. Fine enough. My name’s Rodger, and my clan is Chislers. And remind me, you are...” Rodger had forgotten.

“Illy.” “And I’m Lilly,” Lilly added.

“OK. Good.”

“So?” Illy asked. Lilly continued, “How do you intend to help us?” Lilly was beginning to feel very superior to the dun creature and put on an airy tone, which was missed by the beaver. Rodger, for his part, was unused to addressing crowds. So he put on his working voice.

“Well, you’ve got yourselves a problem. That’s plain. Your problem is the tree, where it’s at, and where you’re at. The problem has two solutions. Move you or move the tree. I’m a beaver, so you know which one I favor.”

The girls thrilled at Rodger’s plain speech and plain thoughts, Illy would later say it fit his color, but she kept that to herself at the time.

Mr. Azure felt it was time to reassert himself. “We thought that moving the patch would work. We could take up root in a place with more sunlight.”

“That would work alright. Agreed. But you’ve gotta consider that you’re plants. Plants don’t move around much. Or at all really. Plants stay put. You forget what you are, what you do, and mess with that, then you usually get a whole bunch of trouble.”

Illy and Lilly didn’t know that flowers weren’t supposed to move. It was something they never considered because they had never thought about limitations. Neither thought themselves limited by being a flower. The realization, that this dun colored creature, this Rodger Chisler, could perhaps live a richer (the words more colorful did not come easily) life than flowers struck Lilly first, then Illy. Suddenly each felt a thin pang of jealousy.

Lilly was about to respond with how limited it was for a dun colored creature who couldn’t attract even an ant, when Rodger said, “I’ll take a look round, if you don’t mind. You’ll have my recommendation within the hour. OK.”

Mr. Azure answered for all of them, “Agreed.”

Chapter 10

2005-10-31T23:05:00.000-08:00

Rodger was busy with his dam. The trick to building a good dam was to leave a wedge on one side and allow water to run over top. Then you could reinforce one portion and slack on the rest.

Rodger’s goal was total water control with a minimal effort. Of course, there were immediate goals, intermediate goals, and overall goals. Rodger’s immediate goal was to chew a tree trunk into perfectly proportioned lumber. Rodger’s immediate goal was to build a perfectly proportioned dam with perfect water control. The overall goal was to attract a beautiful female beaver to share the dam, the water, and a family with him for the season. Rodger felt strongly that one must have long and short goals if one is to measure up in this life.

The view on the riverbank was lovely that morning. The sun was coming up and catching the curve of the water as it flowed between some wedges that formed the scaffolding of the new dam.

But Rodger had no room in his mind. His thoughts overflowed with dam schemes.

At the moment he was putting together a particularly fine dam (they all were). As much as he loved the mental work within his brain, cutting trees was his principle pleasure. Rodger felt that all beavers were adequate at this, but he considered himself expert. It was true that he often admired the work of his neighbors, which he’d never dare to admit aloud, and even had difficulty admitting it to himself. But he simply marveled at his own work. When he came across one of his earlier stumps, from which he felt immeasurably improved, he could see at a glance his craftwork. No waste, not a single bite too many, and not a single bite too few.

It wasn’t only the way he carved out the wood, no. It was the result of the carving. He cut each piece of wood exactly, to fit within the dam perfectly. Each piece of wood served a purpose to the overall structure.

Rodger’s ability to design, to put together, and to make each piece as an individual part of the whole was exact. Rodger’s dams had no spare parts, and certainly no missing parts. In fact, other than total water control, Rodger’s other mantra was “No piece wasted, No piece missing.” Because of this, because the dams could not be made better, Rodger took them to be perfect.

The actual jaw work was most pleasurable. Rodger’s massive jaws pushed his teeth through the wood as easily as water seeps through reeds. The smell of the freshly cut wood filled his nose with the odor of his labor.

Rodger pulled back as a sharp little object flew into his vision. It was a bee.

Rodger was not afraid of bees. “Hello there, out hunting for flowers?” Rodger was in a good mood. His morning was going very well, like each morning before and like each morning to come.

“Hello there. Actually no. I’m out hunting for large animals. Are you one?”

“Well, I might be, to a little bee. Do you get that often?”

Nime didn’t know what the creature was talking about, so she said, “Yes.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Rodger introduced himself as “Rodger, Master Builder, Master Beaver.”

Nime had never met a beaver before. “I’m Nime, I’m a bee.”

“Why would you seek out a large animal? Large animals have a tendency for trouble, even with your sharp little stinger.”

Nime answered, “I’m looking for a large animal who might be interested in a trade.”

“A trade?”

Nime explained. She told the story about as well as you’ve heard it by now. She started with the wasp attack, which she made even more thrilling with a demonstration of her flying abilities. Her wings buzzed at the memory of her chase and her anger at the wasps. He interrupted, “It’s not the size of the bugs, it’s the size of the fight!” And he slapped his tail several times in appreciation and excitement. Nime didn’t mind that interruption one bit.

Nime moved on to how she was being nourished by the flower patch, which made her remember that she was with the flower patch during the wasp attack, which made her remember the flower’s desperate situation, and her talk with the mushrooms.

At the mention of the tree, Rodger looked up. He took a great interest in trees of all kinds.

Nime continued her story. It was all very touching to Rodger. The tree was in the way, the flowers were in the shade.

Rodger interrupted finally, “What do you need the large animal for?”

Nime then explained the idea of trade, as best as she could. “The large animal will move the flowers, I’ll tell the large animal where the hive was. The large animal will eat the honey, and the wasps along with it. That is what a trade is, move the flowers in return for honey, and I will benefit because I will have my revenge.”

“Well, revenge is an excellent thing for your position. Have you considered not seeking it? Meeting up with your queen instead, finishing out the season...”

“No!” Nime knew that her services were not needed to the queen, even if the queen was alive. Worker bees die within the season, so she would meet her queen and die without further service to the hive. Nime looked alarmed at the thought of giving up revenge. The thought had never floated into her consideration, but she drowned it without another thought.

She spoke with a suddenness and surety that firmed up any doubt within her tiny body. The sudden assertion startled her, for she found not a drop of doubt within her. “No. It cannot be. My queen is lost to me. I must make my own path. The flowers have helped me, and they are my hive now. I must trade.”

Rodger smelled the full odor of the wood again, “Well, if it’s revenge against the wasps you’ve after, then you’ll need a plan. Wasps, size for size, are the most fearsome creatures in the forest. You’d be a mad creature to take them on. So one word of advice: don’t spoil your deal with mention of wasps.”

Nime knew this, but also knew of no way to avoid it. She hopped up and hovered. “I’ll be off then. If you do happen to see any large animals that may be of use, particularly those not in fear of the wasps, do tell them I’m in need, also one that may move the flowers to make them safe from the tree. Thank you..”

“OK.” Rodger looked suddenly up at her. He looked suddenly very fierce and brave and sure of himself, “I will be your large animal.”

Chapter 9

2005-10-30T21:28:00.000-08:00

Nime was a bee like all the other bees in the hive. And like all the rest, she had always wanted to do Something Significant. Since she did many things, most of which she did not consider at all special, she defined Something Significant as something remembered by the hive the following season. Something that would carry her name down into the hive for more than one season, that would add to the glory of the hive.

Now the hive was gone. If the queen were still alive, then there was still hope for the future. But Nime thought it was unlikely the queen would rebuild the hive this season. Instead, the queen would burrow deep into the ground, wait out the winter with some drones, and set about rebuilding the hive next spring.

Nime would be forgotten. There was no hope otherwise.

This thought struck her as being entirely true. She wasn’t going to do Something Significant, not even when there was a hive. The accomplishments of the workers made news for a day, until the next accomplishment occurred, and then they all forgot.

Through her life, Nime’s idea of Something Significant was based on the Queen’s discovery of the hive.

Her first drone, Lord First (his real name was Three Degrees Left Two Single and was called Lord First for short), was the queen’s companion over her first long and cold winter. As soon as the young queen knew that spring was upon them, she roused Lord First, who loved sleeping as much as he loved eating. Lord First’s first duty was to ensure a crop of future workers. And then, after a quick nap to replenish his vigor, he set off to find a suitable location to house his queen and their children.

The hive generally gave credit to the queen for every excellent thing that befell them. But each bee knew that Lord First was the one responsible for the finding of the Hive, knowledge imparted to the hive at every opportunity by Lord First himself.

Lord First flew straight north, because he had a theory that bee’s proper place in the world was at the top of things. He could expound on this point for great lengths, but we will spare you. While flying north, he spotted great rock formations that looked promising. Crevices deep within rocks could house a bee hive nicely. The rock formation was part way up a hill, overlooking a wide field filled with flowering plants of all types. The rocks were inhabited by a variety of animals, the most fearsome of which were the Rock-Birds, who exactly resembled rocks, until they came alive with beak, talon, and wing. Lord First did battle with the Rock Birds. Although he claimed victory, he thought the rocks were unsuitable for his queen and future children.

He would sit with the young workers and recount his exploits. Over time the stories tended to unfold and grow more complex, like the unfolding petals of a flower, revealing more and more. Nime recalled when the stories consisted of Lord First meeting a rock bird, flying quickly into a crevice within the stone. She remembered when the story ended there, with a cold night, no dinner, no breakfast, and a quick escape.

Over time the story expanded. The bird became bigger, fiercer. The probing beak became narrow, perfect for pecking at bugs within crevices. The bird was so close that Lord first could hear his breath. He could hear the shudders through the rock as the bird pecked at him.

The little bees would tremble at such an image.

“So I followed the crevice upwards, leaving the bird pecking below. It couldn’t see me, and it couldn’t hear me. I realized then that it was pecking blindly. At the top of the crevice there happened to be a pile of pebbles that were held in place with a single blade of grass. And what do you know? The bird was directly below the pebbles.”

Everyone knew what was going to happen next. Lord First would pretend to pull and pull, wrapping his four legs around the rock, looking over his shoulder every so often to check for the Rock Bird.

“And then I stumbled backwards. I realized that I had the blade of grass in my forelegs, and the pebbles were pouring down as easily as water. They fell onto the bird and cracked him in his head and beak. Very satisfying thuds of a perfect pitch. The Rock Bird didn’t know what hit him, he thought I was still in the crevice, so he went back to poking his horrible beak and squeaking, and then he flew away.”

“How can you be so brave?” One of the young workers always asked this.

At that question, Lord First always puffed up proudly and said, “when duty calls on one to be brave, then one must be brave. The day was not over, not even by half. So I flew from the rocks west, thinking that I’d complete a circle before coming back to the queen.

“Along the way I spotted a tree on its side, which seemed to be growing sideways. I’d never appreciated that trees could grow sideways, and you must understand that this was the first time I’d ever seen a tree that was along the ground. I tried to think what makes this tree so special that it lies on the ground as though it sleeps.

“When you see something that you do not understand, or new to you, I urge you. No, I demand of you, that you think. In order to think you must ask exactly the right question, and so you must first think about the right question to ask yourself. The question I thought of was, ‘what makes this tree so special?’ What is the reason for this? Why is this tree not like other trees?

With this question in my mind I flew down the tree and discovered the massive thing’s root system, torn from the ground. With this knowledge, the entire situation hit me like a purple field of flowers covered in F-plus.” (F-plus was a pheromone that bees placed around special patches of especially delicious and plentiful flowers.) “The tree was dead. Or about to die. That’s why it was on its side. Perhaps it was pushed there by a wind, or an animal. I didn’t know.

“Right at the base of the roots was a little depression in the dirt. I flew closer and ground it was a small hole, like where a root had lain, but been pulled out like a grub from the comb. It was no matter at all to enlarge the hole. I burrowed into the soft soil, and felt then as snug and warm as I do now.

“When I got back to Her Majesty, I told her I’d found our home, and here we are.”

Lord First was fun to talk to, and fun to talk about.

Now Lord First might well be dead. Most of the hive probably was. His stories, his contribution, his Something, wouldn’t survive this season. Neither would Nime’s.

Realizing this, Nime knew what she must do. She had to give up her goal and take up another. She would obtain revenge. She would will the wasps until no more were left to be killed. She was dead after this season in any case. A worker bee’s time is a spring, a summer, and a fall, no more. A bee’s life is a breeze that absorbs into a field of grass, ceasing, leaving only stillness in the air.

Nime’s wings beat with the thought of her revenge, sending her drifting upwards, so she had to hold onto a stem. She would carry a great wind, a great storm to the wasps.

Just like Lord First, Nime realized the solution to her revenge on the wasps. As soon as she had seen the five grains of pollen trapped in the nectar, demanding Nime to eat them as she swallowed the nectar, she knew what she must do.

“Listen to me!”

The flowers stopped their chatter, even the two pale ones, although one whispered something urgently to the other, and both of them let out little giggles.

“I know what I must do. I must get revenge upon the wasps who attacked and defeated the hive. And I know how I must do it. I must reveal the location of the hive, with its honey, to one of the large animals. They will eat the honey, and when they do so, they will eat the wasps, and bring death to them as they brought death to my hive.

“I need to find an animal. Such an animal that eats honey and is so eager to do so that he will allow a wasp’s sting. Where can I find one.”

Illy and Lilly were delighted. Neither had ever seen a large animal before. Each was secretly jealous they had not even seen the wasps.

Illy wondered if wasp yellow was as yellow her petals, Lilly wondered if they really could sting a bird to death, and eat it, as Mr. Caruso explained.

The thought they would see a big animal made them giggle. Illy thought Lilly’s giggle sounded a bit nervous, so abruptly stopped her own. A half laugh later Lilly stopped, realizing she was giggling alone.

Mrs. Scarlet asked the next obvious question, “What animal will eat the honey and is strong enough to get at it?”

Mr. Causo said, “You’re got to get a wolvavore, fearsome creature, it’ll eat anything”

Illy, who took a great interest in animals of all sorts, shuddered at the fearsome name. Then, repeating it to herself, shuddered again. She nudged Lilly, “What is a wolvavore?”

Mr. Caruso overheard her. “It’s got four paws. With fearsome claws, teeth that come out of its face like petals out of Mrs. Scarlet. Its strong and fast. And it eats anything. And anything includes wasps and honey.”

Mr. Azure rolled his petals, and waved his stamens, something he did only when he was impatient. “No. You mean wolverine. That would be a fine animal against the wasps. But one should not make allies with fearsome creatures. And it’s difficult to imagine a more fearsome creature than a wolverine. A wolverine could dig up this patch for an evening meal, dirt and all.”

Lilly and Illy felt the other shudder. Lilly had overheard Caruso tell a story to Mrs. Scarlet about buds that get deflowered, their flower eaten up by an animal, before they can seed. If this occurred to a flower, then the season was over and lost, nothing to do but collect sunlight and wait for next year.

Mr. Azure went on, “a wolvarine would be no use to us. He’d probably eat Nime, the honey, and even us. No, I don’t know what sort of animal we need, but only an animal can help Nime. An animal that eats honey, but is not so fierce as to eat us as well.”

“A bear.”

The flowers all looked at Nime. “Bears are our worst fear. Worse than wasps. Much. When they catch your scent, they follow you back to your hive if you let them, and then they destroy the hive, take all our honey and pollen stores. If one catches onto you, you’ve gotta loose it, or never come back to the hive. I’ll go find one.”

Illy was so excited that she could scarcely speak. “Trade!”

The rest of the flowers didn’t know what to make of that.

“I’ve got it! We can help Nime get revenge and get ourselves from underneath the tree. We need to organize a trade.”

Nime asked, “Trade?” She didn’t know the word. In the hive each bee took work, food, and shelter like they took air from the world. Even Mrs. Scarlet looked confused.

Lilly explained patiently, “Sometimes this spring, when we were budding, then flowering, Illy and I would...”

Illy continued, “Pretend to trade things about ourselves. Like I would say that I’d trade my perfectly deep cup for...”

“My perfectly straight stamens, but then I’d say that my stamens are too lovely, so...”

“I’d offer to trade...”

Caruso broke them off, “OK. We get it.”

“Thank you Caruso,” Mr. Azure said calmly. “Now girls, what would we trade? I’m afraid I don’t see how your pretending to be each other is going to help matters.”

Illy and Lilly said nearly the same thing at the same time, “We’ll trade the animal Nime’s honey to move our patch.”

That stopped everyone cold.

Moving the patch.

Mr. Azure looked up at the tree again, then he looked to his left, where the meadow began, so close to see, hear, and feel, but so far. He couldn’t grow a stalk long enough to reach the meadow in a hundred springs. “Move the patch.” He tried out the thought by speaking it. “A large animal could move the patch.” It didn’t seem like quite such a good idea the second time he said it. His roots, for one, didn’t like the sound of it, especially the longest and deepest among them.

Nime was scared of an animal, but after looking at Mrs. Scarlet and remembering Lord First she said, “O.K. It’s settled. I’ll go.”

With that she was off. She had left to find an animal.

Chapter 8

2005-10-28T15:55:00.000-07:00

In the morning Nime woke feeling cold. At first she didn’t remember where she was. She normally slept surrounded by bees, who heated the air and nestled comfortably around her. Mr. Azure’s leaf was very soft and perfectly fit around her, but it could not hope to provide as much comfort as the hive.

Thoughts like that would get her no-where. Nime was an insect who did not dwell on the negatives, even when awakening away from the only home she ever knew in the cold. She removed herself from the leaf and flew twice around the patch to warm herself. Caruso was already awake.

Illy and Lilly woke slowly, half expecting to see a mass of bark and dirt covering the patch. They were happy to see everyone looking no worse for wear than any other morning.

Mrs. Scarlet looked like the ruby red of the throat of a woodpecker Nime once saw. Dew covered her, which gave her red bubbles through which Nime imagined the redness was concentrated. Nime hurried towards her to get breakfast.

Mr. Azure looked at the tree, then looked around them on the ground. His petals gave him a thoughtful look and he considered the rest of the patch.

“We’re OK. I’m not sure what happened last night, but we are OK. I’m not sure the light changed. I think we need to ask Nime to look around. Did the crash come from the north or north east?”

Nime was already gone. She flew past the tree and saw what happened right away.

The crash had come from a piece of Max, a half dead branch of wood, sodden with rain water. When the wood was released from its height, it came down along the north face.

Some of the mushrooms were missing entirely. Others had wounds from which viscous liquid drained and hardened. All looked unhappy to be in the sun. Nime flew up to the huge mushroom she spoke to before. The moss looked slightly withered as they gave cursory threatening waves. J did not look well either. His left side had been damaged by the falling branch and was hanging by a thin membrane.

“J. J, what happened?”

“The tree is what happened. The tree let a branch drop on us. And now there’s no shade where the branch was. We gotta deal with the morning light. The light should be gone though soon, say, late morning.”

“I’m so sorry.” Nime didn’t really feel sorry, because she knew that the mushrooms had brought this on themselves by trying to hurt the flowers. But bees are also very social creatures, and they know that they sometimes have to say what they do not mean so that they can keep good relations.

By the time she flew back to the patch, she had the entire story.

“The mushroom named J said that the branch came down and scraped against their positions along the tree trunk. That’s bad enough for them, but it also opened up the east sun to them as it comes up. And that’ll give them at least 2 to 3 hours of sunlight in the mornings.”

At this Caruso started to laugh. “Those little molds. Little mildews on the face of prominence. Got a taste of their own poison, didn’t they, eh? Serves them right for trying to have Max hurt us. Max knows we’re down here, but he prob’ly doesn’t know where. As for the tree scum, they got exactly what they deserved.”

Mrs. Scarlet looked slightly alarmed at this, her petals widened, revealing some of her inner redness, “Well, in any case, we appear safe for now, but we are not any better than we were before.” She looked at Nime, “and we aren’t worse off, but Nime is.”

Mr. Azure said, “Nime would have died defending the hive. Yellow jackets are fearsome creatures.” His thoughtful features became dark, “Nime, you might have died if you hadn’t gone to the mushrooms.”

At this, both Illy and Lilly let out small gasps. The thought of Nime, who was so full of movement, lying still, was a thought like a mudstain on a petal. They tried to put it out of their minds.

Nime didn’t say a word. But she thought that perhaps she should have died in defense of her hive. The fact that she did not die was proof, in a way, that she had not fought the wasps. Why had she been spared when so many of her brothers and sisters had died in the fight? Why had she run away from the wasps, why had she not let them kill her by attacking them? The answer immediately presented itself to her. Revenge. She was not sure how, but she was sure that she would bring about the death of the wasps.

Mrs. Scarlet wanted to make things better with Nime. She wanted to ask, “My dear, what are you thinking?” Instead, it came out, “My dear, would you like a bit more nectar and pollen?”

Nime did. She didn’t tell the other flowers, but Mrs. Scarlet’s nectar was the sweetest. It tasted like a raspberry marmalade. Nime settled on Mrs. Scarlet’s petal, brushed up against her style, covered in pollen, which tickled, and nosed into the pollen sac at the base. Sun shone threw the petals and illuminated the small pool of nectar, so that it seemed to glow pink.

Floating in the nectar were 5 grains of pollen, each mote twinkled as it rotated in the nectar, and gave off a ruby light. Finding pollen in the nectar was common, but these grains were arranged in certain familiar way. To Nime’s mind they positioned themselves exactly like the wasps did, when they gathered to eat honey. As Nime ate the nectar, she ate the grains of pollen in one sip, there was no helping it.

After she was done she turned to look at the others. “I have an idea.”

Chapter 7

2005-10-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

Max was ill. The previous summer lightening had scorched along his north face while he suffered a terrifying storm. The bolt burned and killed the wood along that north face and, when combined with the lack of light, allowed mushrooms to take up residence up and down the dead wood.

Max would sometimes drift off into a sort of daydream and imagine all the mushrooms were gone, that he was healed over. He’d imagine that he could just stand in his place, drink deep from the earth, and soak the sun, without all the chatter from the mushrooms, as he’d done before. Then he’d awaken to the way things were.

Trees can talk with other trees from far away. They do this by sending slow vibrations through the earth and pheromones through the air. From other trees he learned that injuries like this were common and fatal, though sometimes not. His case was made worse by the fungi. The other trees told him that the mushrooms were eating his dead wood, but Max knew that the mushrooms tried to send their roots into his living parts.

Some trees, miles away, told him healing stories, but there was nothing they could do. And in those moments, Max knew he was going to die of his wound, he knew the mushrooms would win, he knew it for certain, and this certainty made him feel strangely better.

In the meantime, though, he did not want to suffer. And the mushrooms caused him great discomfort. When trees reach a certain size, they do not like to talk with creatures unlike themselves. And so Max found the mushrooms even more course and rude than they actually were. He did his best to ignore them entirely.

Max particularly disliked Lenny, for no other reason than Lenny’s position near his ear. Lenny took his position as a sign that he was a mushroom of some importance. Lenny also seemed to believe that he and Max were best friends, a belief that withstood any attempt on Max’s part to disprove it.

At the moment Max was trying to prove to Lenny that they were not friends by ignoring him completely. Max had not spoken to Lenny in 3 weeks, and had found this to be more effective than anything else. Lenny didn’t know what to make of this. Being slow, he hadn’t worked out the new terms of the relationship yet. He found that ignoring the fact that Max was ignoring him didn’t work. So he was thinking about new ways to engage Max when the message came up from the mushrooms below.

Lenny couldn’t understand it when the mushroom below him, Andy, yelled up, “Lenny, tell Max this: Max, the fungi are getting sun. Please move your east branch two degrees down, and send us some of your bark for food. Russo says hi.”

He told Max what Andy told him. He hadn’t told any of the other Mushrooms that Max wasn’t speaking to him. He wasn’t sure if Max heard him, so he repeated himself.

Max heard him the first time, but of course didn’t respond. Russo? Max didn’t know anyone named Russo. After thinking about it for a while, he gave up on Russo. He didn’t know anyone names Russ either. Nor Russell. He thought about the rest. He knew fungi didn’t like sun, which is why they liked the darkness of the north side. He also knew that he didn’t like the fungi. Send them bark? Sure, they already ate their fill. Send them sun? He’d never considered it before.

Trees tend to consider things deeply and do things slowly because trees usually have more than enough time to think. They also have a lot of time to live with the results of their thoughts. As a result, trees do nothing hastily.

Back on the ground, Nime was being consoled by the flowers.

It was dusk when Nime got back and this turned to twilight. Mr. Azure was so blue he seemed nearly black. Mrs. Scarlet appeared molten. Her petals caught the light as it came in almost parallel with the ground, and made her glow from within. Illy and Lilly loved to look at Mrs. Scarlet at these times.

Nime told the flowers what happened to her. The part about the wasps was particularly terrifying and when Nime got chased by them, Illy and Lilly nearly choked off each other’s roots by holding other each other so tightly.

“Well, now we are all in some trouble.” Mr. Azure looked a bit limp, “We don’t know what’s going to happen here. You should clear out.”

Nime refused this. “I have nowhere else to go. I’ve got to stay here. I don’t know any other place.”

No-one else knew, but Illy held tightly to Lilly through their roots as Lilly held tight to Illy. Mrs. Scarlet pet Mr. Azure’s main lower leaf with hers.

Each flower offered Nime some pollen and nectar, which she accepted for herself, not for the hive, with thanks. Dusk ended and twilight began. One by one, the flowers drifted off to sleep. Nothing in the world could keep a flower awake during a summer night, not even the threat of branches and bark crashing down from the tree.

Nime burrowed into one of Mr. Azure’s curled up leaves. It took her longer to go to sleep. But eventually it came.

In the middle of the night there seemed to be a crash far away, but Nime thought she was dreaming, so she went back to sleep before she remembered where she was. There was a full moon that caused some light and gave the ground a speckled pattern as it filtered through Max’s branches.

The other flowers roused themselves. “What was that?” They whispered. Out of the darkness, Caruso’s voice carried, “It came from the north side.”

Mr. Azure’s voice carried his assurance, “Well, we can’t see what happened. But I suspect the mushrooms gave Max an idea, which he took advantage of. We ought to wait until daylight, and then we will see what we can see.”

Illy and Lilly had woken up clutching at each other in the darkness. But now they relaxed, each relaxing more because they felt the other relax. They had never before been awake so far into the night. They went to sleep with a sense that whatever was going to be was going to be. And that made them feel much better.

Chapter 6.

2005-10-21T19:09:00.000-07:00

As the flowers talked about what was about to happen, Nime sat watching them. After her adventure up the tree, just sitting in the flower patch felt agreeable. From her perch she could look at Mr. Azure’s blue or Mrs. Scarlet’s red as the afternoon’s cool breeze wafted around and gently rocked her. It felt sinful to waste time like this, which made it feel even better to do exactly that. In general, bees do not have time to simply sit down, so Nime knew there was something wrong.

She was already in the air before she smelled it. When the scent hit her she knew she was right: something was wrong, the hive was in danger.

Bees give off smells to communicate with each other. These are useful in a hive, when one bee may need to communicate with many bees, and doesn’t have the energy to talk to each one.

Now Nime got the smell of Attack. Attack is the pheromone that a bee dying in combat releases. The pheromone hit Nime at the tips of her antennae and traveled deep. It was the smell of horror, anger, and danger. She had only smelled it once before, when one of the workers died in a bird attack, and now the smell was so strong that the world seemed brighter and slower.

She flew to the hive, under the lee of a fallen tree. The tree had a hollow, so that when it fell, many seasons ago, it created a space. It was in this space that the queen founded the hive. It was a small hive, with large riches stored away: pollen, honey, and wax stores.

She saw the bodies of the hive workers and soldiers right away. She noted each had an identical wound: a puncture to their thorax.

There was no mystery. She heard the angry buzz of the wasps before she saw any. The buzz of bees is a perfect high C note. The buzz of a wasp was a low and broken G flat.

When Nime heard that she dropped out of the sky and crawled along the dirt like a common ant. She came to the area where the buzzing came from. It was the entrance to the hive.

They were yellow jackets. Five yellow jackets. Bees have a very keenly developed sense of numbers up to 6, the number of sides in a honeycomb and the number of their legs.

The five wasps were arguing as they ate honey and wax out of a pile they had dragged from the hive. Nime could smell the sweetness and the refined age of the honey. She crept forward to the area between the tree and the ground. She could hear them and could even see them through the grass.

Compared to her they were huge. They were at least 3 times as big in terms of weight, but their long legs made them seem much bigger. Nime would have barely come up to the first joint on the wasp’s forelegs. Their huge long heads sat on a slender thorax, separated from the abdomen by an improbably thin waist. Each section was heavily segmented in chitin. Despite the thickness of the armor, they moved with frightening speed and strength as they ate and argued. Their coloration, a shockingly bright yellow, flaunted their strength as predators.

The two wasps closest to Nime spoke to each other and ignored the other three. The honey gummed their mouths. “Boy, I’m stuffed. I love this stuff. Food of the gods. And it’s all ours.”

“Yeah, I’m stuffed too. But I can’t stop eating it. It’s so good.”

The wasps stopped as they heard the conversation around them take on a menacing tone. The biggest wasp was saying, “Look, it’s simple, I killed the most bees. I took the front entrance and killed them all as they came out. Look at them all.” The yellow jacket waved his long front legs out to the dead bodies scattered about. “I killed the most, I get the most to eat.”

The smallest wasp, named Simon, pointed to the big wasp and said, “Listen, Matthew, there’s food for us all here. We can stay out the season here eating this honey and wax. There’s more than enough for all of us here.” Peacemakers are not leaders among wasps. Even he seemed to realize this as he spoke. The other wasps ignored him.

Another said, “This’s nonsense Matt. You killed some bees? Who cares, they’re easy to kill. Just stick them with your stinger. They can’t even sting us through our armor.”

“They got Jack.” Matthew pointed his long first leg at a single dead yellow jacket surrounded by a pile of dead bees.

Simon the peacemaker said, “One got her stinger between his chitin. I saw it.”

“Poor Jack. Killed by bees.”

“Shameful.” They all murmured their assent at that. “Pathetic.”

Nime could smell them. The smell of wasp, venom, death, and Attack was in the air. She could even smell the bee venom that had killed Jack. The smell of attack was old. Nothing compelled her to waste her life trying to kill five yellow jackets. She wondered if many bees were able to get away.

“Look. I was saying that I should get more. I killed the most bees.” The others took affront at the big wasp, but they all were also relieved that they weren’t talking about Jack anymore.

The one arguing with Matthew said, “Well, it was my plan. Who discovered the hive?”

“Right Henry. So that’s why Jack died.” Matthew faced Henry fully, balancing lightly on his front legs, and looked for a moment like he was going to leap out.

Henry turned to face Matthew fully. “No Matthew, Jack died because he was a stupid wasp. Are you a stupid wasp?” Matthew had already backed down, resting on his hind legs. Henry repeated the question, “Are you a stupid wasp, Matthew?”

This question was asked in such a way that everyone was silent. It was obvious to Nime that Henry was the leader. Despite being smaller than Matthew, he was more capable, dangerous.

Matthew looked down, suddenly coy. “I’m smarter than these bees.” At this, the other four laughed. The smaller one clapped the joker Matthew on the back, happy that a fight hadn’t broken out.

Simon the small said, “You can kill them all, but I killed the queen.”

“You did not. That was just some fat drone who can’t even sting.” Everyone laughed again. “The queen bee is longer.”

Nime’s heart jumped. The queen was alive? She moved slightly. She didn’t hear her own movement, but she must have vibrated the air because each yellow capped head turned as one to look at her position.

The first few flaps of her wings were so powerful they carried her straight up in the air. She realized she was flying away from the wasps as she heard them behind her, their great loud G-flat roar seemed like it was inches behind her.

She angled sharply down into the long grass that surrounded the hive and risked a glace behind her. The two wasps who were eating honey collided and their wings entangled. They fell into the grass, and took to fighting each other. Two more wasps were behind her, and she couldn’t see the last, Matthew.

Before he hit her, she felt the air move ahead of him and she dodged to the left as sharply as she could. It worked, and instead of intercepting her, the wasp flew right into a blade of grass fell speed. He hit with a satisfying crack of chitin and crashed down into the soil.

Nime only had time to hope it hurt.

Nime buzzed between the grass. She dodged to the left, then to the left again, finding narrow spots easily. The wasps had longer wing spans, and Nime could see where they would have trouble getting through the spaces in the grass. She thought that if she kept low, then the wasps would not be able to get her. She thought they were slow from feeding, weighed down by honey and wax. Nime thought this with a sense of amazement. When the chase began, she had assumed she was going to die. Just the thought that she might have the advantage put strength into her wings. She flew as hard as she could until the wasp’s low buzz grew faint. Then she quickly dove into the dirt and hid in a ball of dry grass.

Of the two remaining wasps, Henry and Simon, Henry was still angry from the fight that had almost occurred and Simon knew it, so they both flew fast and hard through the grass. At some points they had to roll almost sideways to avoid narrow spaces.

Both wasps realized they would never catch Nime within a few moments. But out of annoyance and stubbornness, they kept up the pretense of the chase, neither one of them wanted to be the first to give up. Eventually Simon yelled to Henry, “Let her go. Who cares? One bee. One thousand bees. It’s no difference.”

Henry simply beat his wings harder against the air, rising above the level of the grass. Simon joined him as they stared over the grass, looking for a blade that did not move with the light breeze.

“One bee. You’re right, of course, Simon. Thanks for that. Let’s go. And thank you for trying to settle Matthew down. He and Gary are up to something. If you...”

Nime, hiding directly below them, heard them buzz away and lost their voices.

She was alone. For the first time in her life, she was alone.

Chapter 5.

2005-10-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

“Mr. Azure. Mr. Azure. They lied. They lie. It was horrible.”

Nime told them what she had seen, and did dances of apology and sorrow and told them what she had seen.

Mr. Azure looked up, anticipating a block of bark to fall on them at any time.

Mrs. Scarlet was nearly in a panic, “but they got it wrong, didn’t they? They didn’t know what they were saying, did they? They couldn’t get the message up the tree. Right? Mr. Azure?” Mrs. Scarlet gave a look over to Illy and Lilly.

Mr. Azure looked up at the tree again. “No movement yet. One way or another. If the message goes through, and the south main branch gets lowered by ten degrees, we may not get enough energy to even form seeds.”

Caruso looked brighter, “Like I always say, it can always get worse.”

At that particular moment Illy and Lilly were joined by Mr. Azure and Mrs. Scarlet in a shared dislike of Mr. Caruso. That changed when Caruso said, “One thing now is that things are bad. And the worst thing we can do is start second guessing ourselves or assigning blame. We’ve got good flowers in this patch. We’ve got Mr. Azure, who found the problem. Without him we wouldn’t even know anything was wrong. And we’ve got the girls, who thought to ask for help, and are full of good ideas. And we’ve got Mrs. Scarlet, who could get a bee to look at her all day long cause she’s so good looking. And we’ve got Nime, and it looks like she’s flown off already.”

Indeed. Nime was no-where to be seen.

Mrs. Scarlet said, “Caruso’s right. We’ve got a talented group of flowers here. We certainly do. The worst thing to do is to...” She turned to Caruso and said, “thank you,” so that only he could hear (but he didn’t). “Now, it seems that the mushrooms are not on our side of things. They’d rather starve us of sun than help, I don’t know why, but they cannot be trusted.”

“They want our territory.”

They turned to Mr. Azure. Caruso said, “Well? What was that?”

Mr. Azure said, “I was rather afraid of this. Mushrooms live off dead things. They can live on Max’s north side because that was where he was damaged in the lighting and because it is dark. This area here,” Mr. Azure swept his leaves around, “is filled with very rich soil. It is perfect soil for all growing things, plants and mushrooms a like. At present the amount of light favors pants, but only barely. If the south branch is to come down by ten degrees, then next season this area will be covered in moss. The season after that, mushrooms will begin to grow. I didn’t think the mushrooms would realize this so quickly. To even think of sending down bark for mushroom food is a very smart move. I must give them that.”

“What about us,” asked Lilly.

“If these things come to pass, we will not be here. Let’s hope that Max does not get the mushroom’s message. The only thing we can do is wait for morning. I suggest we all go to sleep. There is nothing we can do about any of this for the time being. We’ve set things in motions. Max knows we’re here. So do the mushrooms.”

I Break for Mier's Eyeshadow

2005-10-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

One dark and cold night the policeman asks the man why he's pacing around under a streetlight. "I dropped my keys." The cop responds, "Oh, I'll help you look" (it's in the suburbs). After a while and no luck the cop asks, "Do you think you dropped them here?" The guy responds, "Oh no, I dropped them down the block, but the streetlight is on here."

I think we can safely apply this logic to the upcoming Mier's confirmation hearings. Miers bears a striking personal style that is similar to Robert Smith of the Cure, although the former is perhaps a bit more butch, offset with more eyeshadow. And where Miers is a shadow figure, having written nothing of substance in her professional life, Robert Smith has been writing and singing songs for over 20 years. If they share similar styles, then there is a distinct possibility that looking at Robert Smith's professional work will shed some light on Miers. In any event, it beats looking around in the dark.

Furthermore, Miers might actually be Smith. As proof, has anyone seen them in the same room together at the same time? No? Well, I think I made that point.

It may help the congressional hearings if we examine what Harriet Miers/Robert Smith (Who I will call Harriet Smith, HS for short) thinks about the important issues of the day. Therefore, I offer up my analysis as an aide to the congressmen and women who will or will not confirm the one in this dyad who wears more eyeshadow.

Boys Don't Cry:

Don't say what you mean
You might spoil your face
If you walk in the crowd
You won't leave any trace

Here HS takes on what is so wrong with our judicial process, and she is brave to do so, given today's politicized climate. Her advice (to herself?) to not say what you mean, you might spoil your face (honor) is to be taken with the same grain of salt as it exhorts. When HS is telling us to doubt her, should we even doubt that very statement, thus making it a true statement? HS offers a thoughtful critique on the limits of language itself. This is one very bright lawyer!

On a more basic level, if one does say what one means, then one is destined to leave no trace, become one of the crowd with no hope of advancement. Words to the wise!

In other areas, HS lets her guard down. Let's see how.

Jumping Someone Else's Train:

It's the latest wave
That you've been craving for
The old ideal
Was getting such a bore
Now you're back in line
Going not quite quite as far
But in half the time
Everyone's happy
They're finally all the same
'cause everyone's jumping
Everyone else's train

If we can interpret this liberally (A supposition unto itself!), then HS is telling us that our old ideals might be subject to change, given a new wave that brings one back in line (speaking perhaps of moderation and centrism). Clearly HS is not a dogmatic ideologue, and open to further personal development. As a moderate liberal, I take this as good news.

I do think that HS is a bit naive to believe that this will make everybody happy, but I love the gleeful exuberance implied in the last line: everyone's getting ideas from everyone else. Certainly we need more, not less, of that!

Killing the Arab:
I can turn
And walk away
Or I can fire the gun
Staring at the sky
Staring at the sun
Whichever I chose
It amounts to the same
Absolutely nothing

I'm alive
I'm dead
I'm the stranger
Killing an Arab

Although dressed up in terms of Camus' Stranger, here HS clearly identifies several important points of thought. One is abortion. "I can turn away or I can fire the gun," the choice is mine. Clearly in favor of choice. I don't think it gets any clearer than that. The rest of the stanza assumes Meursault's philosophical views (or lack thereof), so one cannot safely attribute the nihilism of "Whichever I choose, It amounts to the same, absolutely nothing" to HS. Spending time with Bush has no doubt inured HS to killing Arabs, but the Supreme Court has neither divisions nor battalions. If I were an Arab, I simply wouldn't visit the court when in session. I’m not saying that Meirs would kill you in cold blood, but if she did, then she could probably get herself off the hook.

On another topic, while a judge on the Supreme Court one will have victories and defeats. HS will have at least 6 peers of the highest caliber humanity has to offer in terms of intellectual vigor, scholarly thought, general wisdom, and logic. How does one interact with these colleagues, knowing that these brightest of the brightest people may disagree with you, and may even get pissed off at you for not seeing things their way? Once again, HS tells us what sort of person she will be:

In Between Days:
Go on go on
Just walk away
Your choice is made
Go on go on
And disappear
Go on go on
Away from here
...
Yesterday away from you
It froze me deep inside
Come back come back
Don't walk away
Come back come back
Come back today

So we see. Initially she will desire space, but then will want to resume relations shortly afterwards. Could one want any more of a work mate?

The most vital work a SC judge will do is interpreting the constitution of the United States. Some people believe the US Constitution is a holy document that transcends the importance and abilities of man. Many people believe it represents the best words ever laid onto paper. What is HS's personal, intellectual and emotional relationship with the most important words ever written? Although we must make due with what we have, I think we can gather quite a lot:

Spinning on that dizzy edge
I kissed her face and kissed her head
And dreamed of all the different ways I had
To make her glow
"Why are you so far away?" she said
"Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you?
That I'm in love with you"

You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Strange as angels
Dancing in the deepest oceans
Twisting in the water
You're just like a dream

Daylight licked me into shape
I must have been asleep for days
And moving lips to breathe her name
I opened up my eyes
And found myself alone alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me

Now it is clear that HS is not a constitutional scholar. In fact, there have been no disclosures to indicate that HS has ever read the constitution. But that is not to say that HS has no capacity to read the Constitution. When HS does eventually read it (or its cliff notes), can we help but imagine it? On a dizzy ledge where HS dreams of all the ways to make it glow. Is that 'glow' to make it relevant to our increasingly technical and troubled times?

After studying the Constitution, in future times of trouble, when alone, will HS find the Constitution deep within her breast? Does this make the point against Scalia's Originalism? If so, then well done, you had us worried.

More troubling, perhaps, is HS relationship with the one who gave her the job in the first place (should she be nominated): Mr. Bush.

Lovecats:
We're so wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully
Wonderfully pretty
Oh you know that I'd do anything for you
We should have each other to tea huh?
We should have each other with cream
Then curl up by the fire
And sleep for awhile
It's the grooviest thing
It's the perfect dream

Hand in hand
Is the only way to land
And always the right way round

From this, one supposes she will retain her personal loyalties. Are we reading too much into "right way round"?

I think that covers most of the important bases. To sum up, HS will try to hide her 'face' during the confirmation hearings, possibly behind words themselves. She is open to change, does not oppose abortion or killing Arabs (Algerian ones in any rate), and will try to make friends with her peers on the court. More troubling, perhaps, is that she presently plans to remain loyal to her 'lovecat,' Mr. Bush.

She is also a damn fine singer songwriter and cuts a dashing figure on stage.

Chapter 4.

2005-10-17T22:39:00.000-07:00

Nime flew towards the mushrooms. As soon as she entered the north side of the tree she felt the air change. It smelled wetter, heavier, and the buzz of her wings was muffled. The air was certainly colder and she gave a tiny shiver before seeing the cluster of moss and mushrooms that grew on the north side of the Max, and extended into the upper branches.

She flew up as far as she dared. Bees do not like to be alone in the dark, damp, and far off the ground. Birds live in trees. This thought gave her another shiver and she lost some of her nerve. She flew closer to the moss and mushrooms. “Hello?” she asked. Her voice sounded hollow.

The moss seemed greatly disturbed by her presence. They waved tiny projections in the air like green spears and muttered to themselves. The moss was of the darkest green. Every so often a huge crescent shaped mushroom erupted from the tree trunk as though someone had thrown a disk into the tree with such force as to half bury it. The mushrooms had gills underneath, which were delicate and an off white color. Abovetheir gills they appeared wooden and damp, with dark brown patches on a light brown background.

Illy and Lilly would have made several other comments. That the brown was ugly, but nicely set off by the pale undersides. They would have called these autumn colors, only out of politeness. They would have noted the smell of moist earth and disapproved.

Nime flew to one of the larger mushrooms and landed on the circular edge. “Hello?” After waiting a moment, “Hello, are you there?”

“What? I’m still sleeping. Who’s that? What’s that?”

“I’m a bee. My name is Nime. I’ve come on behalf of the flower patch on the other side who need to send a message to the tree.”

“Hum.” The mushroom woke up a little and regarded this buzzing bee. “Everybody calls me J. Why do flowers need help from us mushrooms?”

Nime explained the situation as best as she understood it. Finishing, “Mr. Azure says they will not have enough sunlight to survive until next season.”

“If you trust the sun you’re in danger. You can’t rely on it. We fungi’ve given it up many many years ago. The sun’s not dependable. Not dependable at all.”

Nime was also not directly dependant on the sun, but she was smart enough to know that because the hive was dependant on flowers, who are dependant on the sun, that they were dependant on the sun. Nime was smart enough to take that rule and make it general. All living things were dependant to the sun if they depended on things that, in turn, depended on the sun. Nime knew in an instant that the mushroom was living off of the tree, eating from the tree, and protected by the tree. A tree who depended directly on the sun. She was also smart enough to keep quiet about her thoughts, as well as her sudden realization that this mushroom was not very bright, which could make him either harmless or dangerous.

Nime had always found that a direct line was the best way to get places, so she asked, “So you’ll help the flowers?”

“Whaddya want me to do?” The Mushroom’s voice seemed to get thicker as he became more comfortable with her.

“We just need to transmit a message to the tree.” Nime felt that she had to explain herself as to why she couldn’t do it, “I’m too small to fly up to the tree’s ear. And also afraid of birds, wasps, and spider traps, among other things. I’d like you to pass along the message to mushrooms higher on the branch than you, to eventually reach the tree’s ear.”

“Right. What message? I could see to it that it happens.”

“Dear Max, the flowers to the south below you are getting no sun. Please move your main south branch ten degrees west. This will uncover the morning sun. Thank you. And hi from Caruso.”

“Now, the thing is that we mushrooms like the dark and the damp. We don’t do so good in the sun. I’m not sure I wanna send up this message. I’m not sure we mushrooms want more sun in the morning. We’ve got moss to look after. It’s not just about us.”

Nime hadn’t thought of this, “I’m sure it wouldn’t affect you. You’re all the way on the other side. The light won’t get to you no matter what.”

The great big mushroom was silent for quite some time. Then he let out, “OK. It’ll happen.”

Nime gave her most gracious dance of thanks. This was lost on the mushroom, who was tickled by the slight vibrations. She also left him one of her most delicate pheromones of many thanks, which was also lost on the mushroom, who could not smell such things. But it didn’t matter, because Nime had already flown off.

“Billy. Billy, you up there? Wake up!” The great mushroom could just barely see Billy’s pale white underside above him.

“Hey. Yeah. What’s goin’ on J?”

“I just got a request. Seems the flowers to the south can’t stand the tree’s shade. They want the tree to give ‘em more sun.”

“Yeah, we gonna help ‘em out or what?”

“Yeah, we’re gonna help ‘em out and what for. Pass this up to Carl. ‘Dear Max, the flowers below you are getting no sun. Please move your south branches ten degrees straight down. And please send us down some of your nutricious bark, if you’ve got any. Thanks and Caruso says hi.’”

Billy couldn’t see Carl, but he knew where Carl was, he was located deep within a knot in the tree trunk a little above him. Billy called up, “Carl, hey, you up up there?”

“Billy? That you?”

“Who else. Carl. Pass this up until it gets to Max, the flowers below are getting no sun. Please move your main south branch two degrees straight down. And please send us some of your bark. Caruso says hi.”

Carl may have been one of the dumbest mushrooms, or it may have been that he never heard anyone very well, living in a hole. Either way, he was puzzled when he heard Billy say, “The fungi below are getting no sun. Please move your main east branches two degrees down, and please send us some of your bark. OK? Russo says hi.” He was sure he got part of it wrong, the fungi loved not getting sun, but was too embarrassed to ask, so he shouted out, “OK Billy.”

None of them could see Nime, who heard every word from a crack in the bark where she hid. Nime heard enough, then jumped off the tree and fell nearly straight down, using her wings only to steer herself, until the ground seemed to rush up and was about to hit her when her wings suddenly blurred, sending her buzzing in a perfectly straight line to the flowers.

Chapter 3

2005-10-14T19:57:00.000-07:00

Mr. Azure looked at the group.

“This is going to take planning. Nime is very fast. So we need to be fast as well. We need to talk to her. Does anyone have any ideas?”

Caruso lifted up his faded back petal and said, “I don’t see how you could talk so fast. This Nime speaks quicker than these two little sprouts,” gesturing to Illy and Lilly.

Mrs. Scarlet looked around and said, “Well, that is true. I’ve never heard flowers who speak as quickly as you two do. You two have the most amazing gift for talking. Must be because you practice all the time. Can you try to speed yourselves up?”

Illy said, “Well, we might be able to. We could see how fast we could be.”

Caruso let out his laugh that Illy and Lilly didn’t like very much, “Be. Bee. Ha.”

Mr. Azure just watched. And then he said, “Nime seems to be particularly drawn to you, Mrs. Scarlet. Is it possible for you to make yourself more appealing to her, so that she will stay for longer? Something to bring out your lovely red color even more?”

“Why, Mr. Azure, I don’t know, I never knew, I mean...” Mrs. Scarlet blushed deeply.

Illy and Lilly gasped loudly, and truth be told, with a bitter envy, because when Mrs. Scarlet blushed, her color grew so red she looked as red as a poison berry. Or so Caruso said later, when he told them that a poison berry bush had once grown down ”a ways down the hill. “Actually a nice bushy fella. Hated that his berries were poison, but the red was the warning, see? He’d say, ‘I tried to warn em.’ Just the way he was, poisonous.”

As things just so happened, Nime was flying up toward the flowers at that moment. Nime felt bad about not spending any time with the flowers, as bees usually do with the flowers they visit. She would have liked to sit around longer and smell the flowers, but the hive always needed more nectar. Quotas were enforced and difficult to meet. So overall she didn’t feel bad enough to want to miss her quotas.

Nime knew that the flowers liked having her there, because she dusted them with pollen from other patches, which would make their seeds stronger and more varied. She knew that they would need strong seeds because they were so far in the trees shade she doubted any seeds could take up root after this year. Instead, the seeds would have to travel into the pasture below the tree, which was closer to the hive.

Nime also felt bad about pretending to be so fast. She wasn’t really as fast as she made out, she just didn’t have any time to chat. And she liked their nickname for her. Her real name wasn’t really a name at all. Her bee name was Three-Seven-Left-Work-Two-Without, meaning she hatched out of the third section of the hive at seven degrees to the left, and that she was a worker, second class, never given royal jelly as a baby. This was her exact designation, location and circumstance of her birth and life. It was both more than and less than a name.

She preferred Nime.

When she flew up to the flowers that afternoon it just so happened she fully intended to spend a bit more time with them. Yesterday several worker bees saw a hornet, so the hive was abuzz with energy. Various high ranking drones were organizing soldier bees and the hive’s defenses, so nectar quotas were lowered.

Nime flew up to the patch right as Mr. Azure, the quiet blue flower, said something she couldn’t quite hear. Right away, Mrs. Scarlet’s red became Red. So Red that Nime’s eye was entirely captured by it. She landed right on Mrs. Scarlet’s petal, which seemed to positively glow with the Red next to the dun greenery and dirt. Nime was mesmerized. Right away, the pale yellow flowers started talking.

“Hi!” And at the same time the other said, “Wait!” “Wait for just a second!” said one while the other said, “We have something to ask you!”

By then Nime was collecting Mrs. Scarlet’s nectar and capturing her pollen with her hinds legs. There wasn’t very much. The flowers in this patch made a light/sweet nectar, but not a great deal. Nime mostly came for their colors, which attracted her even in the deep shade. “OK. Go ahead. Mind if I watch while you talk?”

Neither Illy nor Lilly had stopped talking. By the end of their story, Nime was sitting on the ground, watching as Mrs. Scarlet’s Red faded to her normal red.

“Well, what can I do? I’m only a bee. I’d like to help you, but I can’t even talk to the tree. I’m too small to fly up to his main trunk and he’s too big to hear me, even if I could.”

The flowers all drooped and looked a bit withered up at that point. Nime gathered up their nectar and thought. “Well, you know. I could help actually. You’re on the south side of the tree. You can’t see it, but there’s a north side. It’s the really really shady side. There’re toadstools that grow right on the tree. They lead all the way up his trunk. Probably they lead all the way up to his ear. I could tell one, then the other, then the other, and so on, until the last one tells the tree.”

Mr. Azure, “That’s incredible! How did you think of that?”

“Well, that’s how our hive does it. If I saw a new flower patch, I’d go back to the hive, and tell 5 people, then they’d each tell 5, and before you know it, the entire hive knows. What is the tree’s name?”

Caruso spoke up, “When he was a little sapling his name was Max. Now he’s probably called Maximum. If he get’s the message, he’ll help us out. He was a good kid.” Here he looked at Illy and Lilly. They each thought he was going to look at them like they were not good kids, so were surprised to find Caruso’s droopy face looking at them kindly, but only for an instant. Then he got stern again, “He’ll help us. He used to be my little big seedling.”

Mr. Azure said, “We need to tell him to move his main south branch to the west by ten degrees. That way we can get the morning sun, and Max won’t lose much sun for himself. I worked it out. So remember the following message: move main south branch west 10 degrees.” Mr. Azure was excited and was about to tell them how he had worked out a plan, but Mrs. Scarlet interrupted, for which Illy, Lilly, and Nime were grateful.

“Well, we have to make it nicer than that, don’t we? We have to say please, don’t we? Otherwise we’ll be thought of as rude. How about, ‘Dear sir, the flowers below are getting no sun. Please move your main south branch ten degrees to the west. This will uncover the morning sun, thank you.’”

Nime asked, “Is that OK? OK with everyone?”

They barely had time to answer, and she buzzed off.

Chapter 2

2005-10-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

Lilly said, “I don’t understand.” She said it like it was a question.

No flowers spoke. Mr. Azure turned a noticeably darker blue until Caruso said, “Well, you might as well tell them. They’re going to have to know.”

Mr. Azure spoke slowly, so he wouldn’t have to repeat anything, “I don’t want to alarm you, but Mr. Caruso is correct, you may as well know as we are in this together. All of us, all five of us, have a problem. We are in danger. We are in so much danger that I believe we must solve our problem if we want to ever bloom again.”

At this, Illy and Lilly gave little gasps. Of the two, Lilly would later say she was more particularly horrified, having become so fond of being in full bloom over the spring that she was already looking forward to next year’s blooming, when she thought her color would come in at a more vivid yellow. Illy would silently half disagree, because she believed she was equally if not more horrified, but she did agree that her yellow was presently much more vivid than Lilly’s.

Caruso looked saddened and even more wilted around the tips of his leaves. “You’d better explain.” He muttered to himself, but no-one could hear it, so no-one paid him any mind.

Mr. Azure had been preparing this speech in his mind ever since he recognized the problem over the winter. He remembered winter very fondly, since within his seed husk, deep within the warm earth, he could doze and think, without the constant bother of the other flowers, buzzing bees, and ants. Nor did he have to consider the ever present threat of rabbits, caterpillars, and aphids. Yes, winter was a fine time to be half alive, half asleep.

He told Illy and Lilly about the problem. It was during the last winter that the Terrible Thought struck him. It was so nearly like a nightmare that he would have called it one, if flowers had a word for nightmare. Since they didn’t, he called it his Terrible Thought. And it was simply this: there is the tree, and there are the flowers, both use the sun for their energy. The tree is between the sun and the flowers, which leaves the flowers in the shade.

In his terrible thought he saw the tree’s broad, effective leaves catching all the light, blotting out the sun, and starving the plants below. He woke with the sudden realization that they could not store enough sunlight as energy to survive the winter. And if not that coming summer, then the next.

During spring, sure enough, he watched the tree’s leaves fill in as he watched shade darken the ground. He made some rough calculations and estimated that even if they did not have one single cloudy day, they would not survive the winter with enough energy to bud. Unless they figured out how to solve the problem, they could only hope for the survival of their seeds. Their seeds, unlike them, could use the wind to carry them away from the shade of the tree. Mr. Azure thought that this was important, that the seeds get far away to a bright sunny field, but he also considered himself important, so he thought and thought about how they could escape the tree’s shade.

He told Illy and Lilly that he had already told Caruso on the sly, thinking the old flower would have some wisdom from past seasons to share. He didn’t tell them that the old flower only pointed out that there was no more grass on the ground. As the tree grew, less and less sun could get through to feed the grass. Caruso remembered when the tree was new, and grass covered the ground, always chattering in grass nonsense. “Never thought I’d miss that endless chattering. Completely mindless talk. Utterly boring! Grass talks about only one field you know, the field of grass related interests. How tall to grow, how green to get, what is the best width. I could never pay attention.”

Mr. Azure hadn’t given any mind to the lack of grass all around them. It confirmed to Mr. Azure that he was correct. The tree was taking all the sun.

Mr. Azure did not share with Illy and Lilly the fact that, to his great annoyance, Mr. Caruso immediately told Mrs. Scarlet, and Mr. Azure had to spend his time answering her questions.

Now Illy and Lilly knew.

Mr. Azure concluded, “That leaves us with the following question, what are we going to do?”

Mr. Azure was about to go on, but it was Lilly who surprised him with a question. At least, he thought it was Lilly, it might have been Illy. “Why don’t we just ask for help?”

“Help?” Mr. Azure was so struck by this that he repeated himself, which was very unusual, “Ask for help? From whom?” He thought that he had considered all the possible solutions.

“Sure, help,” said the other one, who was probably Illy, “We could try to get help from the tree.”

Lilly finished, “Up at the tree leaves, there is plenty of sun, and we could just ask the tree to let some sun through.”

That idea filled Mr. Azure with an immediate sense of possibility, a feeling he hadn’t had since first having his Terrible Thought.

“Mr. Caruso!”

Mr. Caruso had drifted off into sleep during Mr. Azure’s explanation of the problem. “Uhh!” he said, as he snapped up.

“Illy and Lilly have an idea. We could ask the tree to share the sunlight with us. You know the tree. You were here when it was on our level. We need to know what the tree is like and how we should speak to him.”

Illy and Lilly blushed at Mr. Azure mentioning them.

“Well, that was many seasons ago. When that tree first came here, he was as small as we are. But boy,” Caruso looked up at the great expanse of the tree’s trunk and branches, “he’s grown. He was a reasonable youngster. A loner, but he has no patch of his own, you see? We were actually something like mates, because he was just a young sapling then and I’d already been around the year a few times. We weren’t close like Lilly and Illy here, but close enough. His name is Max, but you could call him Maximum now.”

Caruso looked up again, “He knew he was in for bigger things from the second he got here. But he never was one to take advantage. He never stole our water, and I think he probably could have, as he got big, but not so big that I couldn’t talk to him. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind helping out an old friend. The problem is that we haven’t spoken for seasons now. He’s gotten too big to talk to. You’d have to get all the way up there. To where his ears are”

Lilly was very excited, “Nime could help.”

“Yeah, Nime could help,” cried Illy, who was also very excited. They first met Nime as soon as they flowered. Nime was a honey bee.

In general bees move very fast, although it also might be that flowers move very slowly. Both Lilly and Illy had made several friendly “hellos,” each of which the bee replied “Nime, Nime, Nime.” Only after the first few visits did Illy and Lilly make out that Nime was saying “No time,” but so fast that the words blurred together. But by then her name was Nime.

Illy thought Nime had had the most beautiful yellow hairs and particularly admired her eyes, which were a golden color of a perfect metallic hue. Lilly admired Nime’s yellow antenna and made a point of giggling when the fluffy and thick feelers tickled her petals and stamens when Nime drank her nectar, at the same time picking up and dropping off pollen seed deposits in the beautiful yellow hairs that covered her legs.

Illy and Lilly were upset each time Nime appeared to favor the red leaves of Mrs. Scarlet and the blue of Mr. Azure to their pale yellow. Even though they looked forward to Nime, her daily visits never failed to make them upset. Mrs. Scarlet would comfort them afterwards, “Illy, Nime is spending more and more time with your nectar, you just can’t tell it. And Lilly, Nime could clearly see your purple trim just as clearly as I can. I’m sure of it.” Illy and Lilly were slightly less sure of this when Scarlet got them confused.

Mr. Azure looked at Illy and Lilly as though he wanted to get back to looking at the tree. “Honey bees always work. That’s why Nime can never stay and talk. I’m not sure Nime can even understand us. We may be too slow for her.” He paused and looked up at the tree. “But I think we have to try.”

Chapter 1.

2005-10-09T16:09:00.000-07:00

So I finished a rough draft of a story. This is actually the first story I've ever both started and completed. Most of it is typed up and ready to go. I'll post it up starting now in small spurts. I'm looking for comments, corrections, and good readers - if you're willing and able, I'll appreciate and heap praise upon you - even (especially) for bad comments. It's meant for kids, ages unknown. OK, here goes:

_______________________________

Hillary wasn’t her real name, although it was her given name. Everyone in the flower patch called her Illy instead. This was not to be confused with her sister Lilly, who’s not real name was Lillian.

Lilly and Illy were sister flowers. They had only just sprouted, but in that time they spent so much time next to each other, talking and gossiping and laughing, their roots grew entangled together. Even above stem level it was difficult to tell where one started and where the other began. Sometimes they spoke for each other, but they did not tolerate any other flower in the patch ever confusing them.

“I’m not Illy,” Lilly would say.

“I’m not Lilly,” Illy then echoed. Their voices sounded the same, especially in indignation.

“Lilly is a brighter shade of yellow, just by a hint,” Illy would say. And to that, Lilly said, with a great deal of both exasperation and satisfaction, “Illy has a lovely purple rim around her petals that you can see best on that one.” Illy wagged her petal with the slight purple trim back and forth, admiring the way the sun played off it. That was Illy’s favorite petal. Illy would tell the rest of the flowers that Lilly’s cup was slightly deeper than hers, to which Lilly would tell the rest of the flowers that Illy’s petals were slightly rounder than hers. This could go on a long time because with each compliment, Illy loved Lilly more and Lilly loved Illy more, and when that happens you don’t want to stop.

Much like you, the other flowers in the patch found it very confusing.

Caruso, who had bloomed for many seasons, said, “Oh, will you two sprouts just knock it off. You look the same to me. Always have and always will. Some of us were here when the tree was just your size. And we’d have been better off if we would have nipped him in the bud as well.”

Neither Illy nor Lilly particularly cared for Caruso at these times, but they always adored the other two flowers in the patch, Mrs. Scarlet and Mr. Azure.

Mrs. Scarlet did try her best to tell them apart, and would be terribly sorry when she got them confused. She would usually say, “Oh, you poor dears. I am sorry. So very very very sorry. It looks like I did it again. Now, you are Illy, and you have the brightest green green leaves and perfect petal position. And Lilly, your stem looks like it is as straight as, well I do not know, but it is very straight indeed, and your stamens are as long as they are elegant.” To this, the two would blush and giggle. Later they would compare their green leaves and straight stem to the others in the patch and feel very fine as they waved their elegant stamens about.

Each thought the world of Mrs. Scarlet, and each envied her color. Her red was the fullest shade, a pure red, with not a hint of an adulterating yellow, green, or blue. At the base of each of these unsullied red petals Mrs. Scarlet had a bright yellow dot, as though they had been painted on by dew. Each circle, when combined, formed a larger circle, perfectly surrounding her center. She had many petals underneath, each one overlapping with the other slightly giving her an impression of both fullness and delicacy.

Mr. Azure did not address Illy or Lilly by name, so seldom got them confused. The former fact was lost on Illy and Lilly, the other was not. But the fact was that Mr. Azure seldom spoke to them at all. In fact, he rarely spoke to anyone in the flower patch. He usually watched the tree above them.

Mr. Azure was a simple and flat flower compared to Mrs. Scarlet, and in this he resembled Illy and Lilly. He had only 5 petals, the largest pointing down. The lower petal had a lovely central pallor that seemed to catch the reflection of the top petals, highlighting their perfect symmetry.

Both Illy and Lilly liked Mr. Azure principally because of his blue color. His petals were so blue that they seemed to have added depth and mass, even though they were thin as the wings of a butterfly. The blue petals changed shades over the day, deepening and darkening. Because Mr. Azure hardly ever spoke, he never bothered Illy and Lilly when they watched the petals changing, which was something that Illy and Lilly often did.

Illy would say to Lilly, “Did you –”

To which Lilly would cut in, “see that?” Just at a moment when Mr. Azure’s blue became bluer than seemed possible.

His petals also changed as he bloomed from bud to full flower. And so every day he seemed a riper blue than the day before.

Mrs. Scarlet told them that Mr. Azure would become a deeper blue day by day until he began to go to seed, which was something that Illy and Lilly had not done before. They were horrified that they are going to loose their petals altogether, then grow monstrous seed pods, and then dry out, and then retreat into their own seed, deep in the ground, where they would stay all winter, sleeping.

As it was, Illy and Lilly barely ever slept now. There was always something going on. And after something went on, there was that something to talk about. And after that, then they could always talk to Ms. Scarlet, or watch the blueness of Mr. Azure change as he silently watched the trees, or bother Caruso to tell them stories about winter.

Mr. Caruso had very good stories, which made him tolerable.

“One day I was sleeping, which is something you will be doing quite a lot of come winter, and it wouldn’t do you any harm to do more of it now, so that the rest of us wouldn’t have to listen to you all the time. Yimmering and yammering. Oh so blue this, oh so blue that.”

Those were exactly the times when Illy and Lilly didn’t particularly care for Caruso.

“So anyway. I was sleeping. During winter sleep is a long thing, but it is also a light thing. You are always just a second from getting up if something happens. Something happened. And it got me up, but I didn’t know what that Something was. It was a big Something. On the ground. Standing on the ground I mean. Because then I heard another Something.”

Lilly couldn’t stand it, “was it a rabbit?” Rabbits were very ferocious creatures. Caruso refused to tell them any rabbit stories until next season, “at very least, for your own good, and stop asking me!” which was something he told Illy and Lilly almost once a day.

”It was a hoof. But it might have been a horn.” His voice dropped into a whisper, but such a loud whisper that anyone could hear, “That was the Something. And there was more. I could feel the hoof hit the snow and start scraping. As it scraped at the snow, it scraped against the hard, cold topsoil. Soil during winter isn’t like it is during the summer. During the summer, it gets nice and loose, and your roots can breath. They can relax somewhat. But during the winter...”

“Caruso!” Both Illy and Lilly liked to keep Caruso on track. They were neither very diversionary.

“OK, OK. You’ll see. So what I was saying was that I felt that hoof, or horn, scrape the snow and the soil like it was directly above me. It sounded like thunder to me. It sounded like it was hitting me right in the face. And then I heard something even more terrible. Something I hope you never hear.”

At this, Caruso drifted off. He sort of bent up and his stem became even more crooked while his petals seemed even more disheveled and faded than ever.

“Caruso?” Illy asked. “What did you hear?”

“I heard munching.”

“Munching?” Lilly’s voice trembled slightly. “Munching on what?”

“On the grass.” Caruso answered. “There isn’t much grass out here now, because of the tree. But there used to be plenty. You’d have a tough time of it sometimes. The grass grew so thick it was hard to shoot your stem above grass level every spring. You’d hit air level, but you’d still have to clear grass level. Blades of grass are nice to look at, but it is a fact that each one of ‘em does not have a thought in their heads. In fact, they are so stupid that...”

“Caruso!”

“Oh yes. So it was munching. The scraping sound was an animal that scraped away the snow. Once it got down to the snow, I mean, grass, down to the grass, it munched on them.”

“What sort of animal was it?” asked Illy, who was always adding to her extensive knowledge of animals.

”Well. I’d guess it was a giraffalo. That, or a buffazille.”

“A buffazille!”

“A buffazille has a great big hoof on its toes and nose, so it might have been the buffazille’s nose that I heard, scraping against the cold ground. Then again, one must always consider...”

“It was probably a deer.”

Everyone turned. Even Mrs. Scarlet, who had been dozing off, turned to look.

It was Mr. Azure. He was already looking back at the tree when Lilly asked, “I’m sorry Mr. Azure, but what did you say?”

Rather regretfully, as though he were very sorry to have spoken at all, he turned his face from the tree down to the other flowers, “It was most likely a deer. Deer come through here quite often, actually, over the winter. We don’t see much of them now because we live off their summer trails and bedding areas. They have hooves, they dig through snow with them to uncover grass.” He gave an apologetic glance to Illy and Lilly, “which they eat.”

Illy and Lilly pretended they didn’t mind. If they pretended hard enough, it almost made it true.

Illy spoke up, “Mr. Azure, why do you spend so much time looking at the tree?”

“I’m trying to figure out a way out of here.”

Crazy

2005-10-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

Crazy people really are crazy. Yesterday I was called to see someone who also has what appears to be a severe case of psychosis. He tells me that all of his problems are due to the "spirit that moves me," and then refused all treatment - don't want to get rid of the spirits!

This, of course, reminded me of other cases I've seen (I can almost not enter buses because the people will send me back to my internship and I'll feel all depressed and sleepy). The one in particular that struck me was when a delusional patient was talking to an attending. I was just watching as a medical student. The delusional patient is exactly like a religious zealot, who, in Churchill's words, won't change his mind and won't change the subject. So the guy is telling the attending that people are trying to steal his organs to run experiments on them.

This actually has some basis in fact, because almost every morning we check labs on patients, and blood can be considered an organ (it is a tissue), and they do run it for cell counts and salt levels, which constitutes a very boring experiment.

In any case, the attending was a young man, and very practically minded. He insisted again and again that no-one is going to run experiments on his organs. He ran through some reasons why this made no sense, and had about as much progress as I would have convincing Tom DeLay there is no god. Eventually the attending asked if the patient thought he was missing any of his organs.

To this the patient looked up at him and gave him a gapped tooth smile, "I'm missing my mind man. My mind."

True enough.

And thus I realized that the right answer can be ascertained in a variety of ways, some don't even have to be proper. I think that's probably one of the most important things I learned in medical school, all due to a wild haired, gapped toothed, psychotic person. I'm referring, of course, to the attending.

Resident Rounds

2005-10-03T09:57:00.000-07:00

Rounded with the residents this weekend, which was tiring for me and no doubt horribly grueling for them. Not that I have sympathy, because hell, I went through that and worse. I do, however, have recognition.

Hospital rounds confirm time and time again a simple fact of life: illness of any type sucks. Illnesses are usually painful, they disfigure, they impair function, they limit life. They affect the young, but mostly the old.

But it's an odd thing that the more the illnesses disfigure, hurt, limit - the easier it is for the doctors. There's an almost disgusting ease about caring for the very ill patient which makes you think, for example, OK, big heart attack - put on big heart attack pathway. And you don't have to think about it anymore.

It's when illness is on the fence between horrible and benign that you have to give a patient thought and experience and reading. So that chest pain isn't from the heart, well then, where is it coming from?

That's tough.

Anyway, now I have to get back to it. Short one today.

Joey Ramone

2005-09-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

As a fan, I love this homage.

The Ramone family had great jeans, but not so good genes (please do not mention to me that some of the Ramones were not related, I know that, and it will only piss me off), but man, could they rock. So can Amy Rigby. Her riff at the end puts her and her band into my brain like a shot of vodka. In fact, the entire song seems to have been distilled out of the 80s. Here's to the Ramones.

Cheers.

Error

2005-09-27T11:20:00.000-07:00

Caught my own error last week. Rather difficult case with many complaints, all real. While dealing with each one in isolation I made a recomendation and prescription for one of the problems. But later, when dictating, I realized that my recomendation and prescription was exactly the wrong thing to do when the other problems were taken into consideration. There was a low chance that the medication could have caused a problem. So low, in fact, that the association has not risen above anecdote, and some doctors are comfortable with the medication in this setting. I'm not though.

Oops.

It's difficult to admit error. And that's what I did when I called up later in the afternoon and told the person to not take the prescription.

That sucked. I really really really hate being wrong.

And yet for some reason this gave the patient more assurance and she thanked me.

Impeachment

2005-09-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

--U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 4

I'm not a lawyer. I'm a doctor. As such I've read my fair share of boring passages, trying to make sense of the lung, for example. While the lungs still elude me, I can grasp the meaning of the words above. There is no need to rephrase it. Everyone is accountable should they commit treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

The process of impeachment starts in the House Judiciary Committee, which begins deliberations whether or not to initiate an impeachment inquiry.

By now one knows what I'm all about here. Bush needs to be impeached. This will leave Cheney, unless he is also impeached.

I just signed their referendum, it made me feel better. I'm an agent of change.

I believe that it is highly likely that Bush lied to Congress in order to go to war with Iraq. He did so in a very clever way: he selected evidence to go to war and presented that evidence in a biased manner, so perhaps lie is a poor word. Deceit is better. Either way, if it doesn't rise to the level of high crime, I can think of nothing else that would do so.

It is certainly a crime worth investigating

Up Next: 2000

2005-09-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

There have been 2100 coalition deaths in Iraq as a direct result of Bush's actions. About 1900 of these have been American. Within the next few months we will be treated to breaking the 2000 mark. Especially as the violence continues.

Although Bush clearly does not read newspapers, internet news, or watch cable TV, perhaps his staffers could prepare a DVD for him when the 2000 mark comes (as they were forced to do when he ignored Katrina and New Orleans for several days). Because he really ought to know.

He really ought to know that he allowed us to go to war and is personally responsible for 2000 lives. He is utterly unaccountable, of course, which is the greater shame. Nor are we talking about dead Iraqi children, women, and innocent men, which is a greater number and a greater shame. Bush's responsibility is not crystal clear. Just ask O'Reilly about that one, a man who refuses to hold Bush responsible for his actions. I doubt he will mention the number 2000.

Responsibility for this war seemingly diffuses into the administration. Rice dropped the ball on the tubes. Rove got revenge for the Yellow cake that is still in Niger. Cheney gave good propaganda. Rumsfeld's plan failed and Iraq is headed further towards islamofascism as a result. Powell got turned into a shill.

But let's not allow it to diffuse. Let it focus. Let it be a light, drilled into Bush's gently downward sloping eyes as he squints against it. Bush is the one to whom 2000 American soldiers gave their lives. Let 2000 points of light force themselves into the eyes of Bush. Through the pupil, let them concentrate on the retina. Will he see it? There can be no doubt to the answer.

Those who ignore have no perception.

Luck

2005-09-18T01:24:00.000-07:00

There is much to be said for luck.

Normal people know this, of course. Only the utterly self absorbed, those who's arrogance and their true belief in themselves prevents insight, deny that luck has the slightest bit to play in their happy lives.

I am so lucky. The ways are impossible to count. My life, and all of our lives, can be thought of as so improbable as to be nearly impossible. Only luck of the highest sort can account for it. 100 years ago no-one would have put a single cent on my birth, which had to take place when my 4 sets of greatgrandparents met, some moving half way around the world to do so. Then random combinations of genes produced another filial, who's random eggs and more random sperm met to produce my mother and father. And one more so-improbable-that-it-could-never-happen-again-in-a-billion-copulations occured. And I was born.

On this basis alone I'm pretty damn lucky. And I could say the same thing about you.

But it doesn't stop there. My parents sent my drinking/parying/not studying ass to college where I was lucky enough to realize that if I didn't get my act together I'd end up as a looser and got involved in school.

After this time I met my wife. And this makes me so lucky that were I not a firm atheist, I'd consider this proof of God.

Because my wife is great. How great? Well, after getting home from work, I gave the kids a bath and had a beer. I'm now relaxing. The kids are in bed.

I'm a lucky, deeply lucky guy. And, btw, whenever I try my hand at and game of chance: I loose in direct proportion to my winnings in the greater game of chance, life.

Dear People of NOLA,

2005-09-10T14:59:00.000-07:00

Since I have no choice in the matter, I won't allow you to thank me and my peers for paying to dry your city, and provide order, water, and food to your citizens. No, I don't want your thanks. I don't even want your thanks for paying my insurance premiums, which in large part will go to support your reckless rebuilding on land that will sink further and further below sea level. While I may not require your thanks, and they are certainly in order, all I want from the citizens of NOLA is your attention to this rant.

In 2000 LA voted for Bush by large margins. One must suppose that Clinton's years of peace and prosperity did not appeal to you as manifested by Robot Gore. Initially there was no change because Bush was on vacation.

You must have been as horrified as we were by the 911 attacks on America. I'm sure many of you have visited New York and for those of you who didn't, imaging a New York without twin towers is like imagining yourself without twin limbs jutting out of your shoulders.

I'm sure you joined all of America when we cheered Bush on as he attempted to find and punish the Islam-o-fascists-o-fanatics responsible for the plane attacks. Conservatives and liberals wrote Bush a blank check to do what had to be done. Meanwhile, I guess you weren't paying attention to the corruption of your own politicians as they failed on every level to build levees that would actually work. When you fail on a daily basis to pay attention to the rampant poverty that surrounded you, it's no surprise you also failed to attend to the levees that protected you.

You must have not been paying attention to that country called Iraq. It is located in the Middle East and was ruled by a horrible and secular tyrant named Saddam. You might remember there was a movie called Three Kings with Marky Mark... But that's distant history. All you have to do is remember two words: Saddam (he's the horrible tyrant), and Iraq (that's the country). Funny words aren't they? Both of them are far away and didn't concern us in the slightest until 2003.

Bush invaded that country (Iraq), telling us Saddam (remember, that's the tyrant) harbored weapons of mass destruction, and had ties to the terrorists who flew planes into the world trade center. These later proved to be lies, but they were so convincing at the time that the entire country was up in arms. Bush et ilk also promised that the people in Iraq would welcome us with open arms. And that we would all be one big happy democratic family. We, the US, would play the role of the protective father. Iraq would welcome us with flowers, and play the hard working mother role, pumping oil out of her swollen breast to feed the hungry children around the world.

This was a fantasy. By 2003 the world was treated to our new reality. Our soldiers did not receive flowers. Instead, we learned a new word, the IED, or Improvised Explosive Devices. As US soldiers started dying, we were treated to photographs of our soldiers torturing Iraqi people, some of whom were later released without charges.

Meanwhile, on the home front, America was bleeding about one and a half billion dollars into Iraq weekly. Great time for a tax cut geared towards the rich! In response to this Bush plan, deficits soared. We entered a lukewarm economic recovery. Income levels leveled off for middle America, personal debt grew, but at least the rich were finally able to afford their fifth cars. Some got boats.

This is where you come in. When people pay taxes, they enter into a social contract with the government. In exchange for taxes, we get things like roads, courts, police officers, and regulations to make sure cyanide isn't in baby food. In exchange for taxes, you were supposed to get levees. But with all that money being spent in Iraq, and with all the Bush driven tax cuts, levees got cut out of the budget.

Despite this, the people of LA voted for Bush in November of 2004, almost one year ago. Not a single county went for Kerry, I checked. During the campaign, Bush maintained the war in Iraq was necessary, not a diversion from US interests or our national safety. He still hadn't found Bin Laudin, who was the man responsible for 911.

Bush attacked Kerry for not having a plan to keep America safe from more terrorist attacks. Bush told us he had a plan. He told us he's been getting ready for potential threats from all corners. He even created a Department of Homeland Security to maintain US security. He figured that people who were scared for their security would vote for him. For the most part, you did.

Looks like you just learned that the perception of safety is not the same thing as safety.

Since the election, in which the people of LA supported Bush by over 100,000 votes, the war on Iraq has continued, and gotten much worse. Your taxes have been spent bringing Islamofascism to what was once merely a terrible secular tyranny like many others the world over. But Bush hasn't only taken your taxes to pay for Iraq. Over one third of the LA national guard and one half of their equipment have gone into Iraq, brought there by Bush. This equipment includes high water vehicles, which are presently located in Iraq, mostly desert.

You know the next thing that occurred on this timeline. What you probably don't know about is the fact that Bush spent the five weeks prior to the hurricane on vacation. One day, when 14 US soldiers from Ohio died in Iraq, he was enjoying long bike rides in Crawford Texas and fundraising meetings with the rich people he helped by cutting their taxes. He didn't see any particular need to go to Ohio. He also didn't see any need to meet with Mrs. Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq. Bush hoped something would come along to distract the news away from this failure of his character.

That something came. Katrina didn't come as a sudden hope. It came with 2 days notice. Bush's policies over the 4 years since 911 came to a test. And what did we find? We found there was no plan, no relief for days on end, no coordination. We found chaos on the streets, which were hidden from view by the many feet of water that quickly turned into oily sewage. We found a weak and halfhearted response from the federal agencies as looters helped themselves and dead bodies rotted in the sun. We found FEMA had been stacked with Bush appointments, none of whom have experience with disaster relief. Citizens were left to defend and fend for themselves. Bush, from Air Force one, said, "It must be bad down there." He later said that "no-one expected the levees to breech." No-one other than anyone who had spent any time on the problem, or anyone who lived in New Orleans for more than one week.

If you can't see the connection between the federal government's failure to help the people of NO, to prevent levees from breaching, and Bush's policies over the last 5 years: tax cuts, war in Iraq, then you're probably too stupid to have read this far.

So I included pictures. Below you'll find my other donation to NO. The other donation is a financial charity to support you, but, not content with this, I wanted to give ya'll a concrete gift. These former monetary charities only subsidize and enable your way of life, they do nothing to prevent you and your corrupt politicians at all levels from demanding more of my aid. I don't want you to be forever dependant on my aid, because then you will have reduced incentive to figure things out for yourself. I'm willing to go the extra mile and support you in a very solid way.

I bought a tub of concrete for 10 dollars. I suggest you use it to support your local levee. I will mail it to you, if the US mail still works. It is ready to go and requires no mixing with your sewage, I mean, drinking water. Please use it well. Email me an apology on behalf of all Bush votes in LA and I'll throw in shipping.

BTW: one more thing you ought to know. Robot Gore (NOT one of your elected leaders) spent $50,000 of his own money chartering 2 planes to get some infirm patients out of a hospital after your state and federal agencies failed. So a tub of concrete is the least I can do.

Thanks to Ern, I'm putting this up front.
http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline
- Required reading.

Improvements

2005-09-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

If you want to test your marriage, I suggest doing a home improvement project while the kids are at home. After 3 solid days of working 8 hours side by side, making mistakes, getting sore, and suffering blisters, heat strokes, and being able to do nothing at night other than collapse as a salty, fleshy, pile of soreness; you will have tested your marriage. If solid, then you've nothing to fear, except the destruction of your house.

Next time: contractors. For sure.

Fault

2005-09-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

Man and nature enjoy a complex relationship. Perhaps enjoy isn't the right word. Because nature does not enjoy it. Nature suffers it.

We now see that when push comes to shove, nature wins. In addition to confirming atheism for once and all, this hurricane provides ample evidence of man's sins against her. New Orleans was built on a delta formed by the mighty miss, between a lake and an ocean. The land New Orleans was built upon depended on the silt brought down by the Mississippi. But the Miss was boarded up, not allowing its silt to collect in the delta. New Orleans began to sink. It is currently between 1 to 5 feet below sea level and 2 to 6 feet below lake (Pontchartrain) level. It is kept dry by pumps and levies. But dig a hole and brackish water fills it nearly to the brim.

The silt once fed islands to the south of New Orleans, and which once provided protection from onshore storms. They are no more.

Further compounding the problem is the greenhouse effect, raising water levels by centimeters.

The fact New Orleans is under sea level produced two things of note and of death: mausoleums and danger. Levies and walls proved a sense of relief from the danger.

Danger came to New Orleans on Monday. The levies failed. It will become obvious that New Orleans did not invest enough into its own protection. But it is also obvious that New Orleans had to fight uphill against nature and its ill chosen location.

Now that danger has come, the protection has failed; portions of the US appear to resemble the third world nation we may yet become. Basic tools of civilization are no more: sanitation, food and water distribution, health care. Our military, stretched as it is bringing islamofascism to Iraq, cannot keep up with this new demand, although their efforts are as noble and worthy as they try, and succeed, in bringing citizens MREs and water.

The protections in place have been damaged more than any potential terrorist could hope for. Gone is homeland security, which is apparently more interested in monitoring our library cards than providing security to a commercial center. The effects are wide in reach. The city is destroyed for now. Its culture was more than beads and boobs (of both the mammary and drunken kind). It was a port city, so imports and exports will be hurt.

The oil industry is also hurt, cut off from their dark material. US economic policies, such as they exist (although there is no more proof of these than of God), have been shown to be not helpful. As gas prices rise, Americans would do well to ask why. Why, especially after 911, did we not make attempts to cut off oil money from the Saudis, Iranians, who then helped sponsor terrorism and terrorists? Iraq, drunk and currently emboldened on its oil power, is creating atomic bombs. Why were SUVs not assigned a federal tax, instead of a federal tax loophole?

At least someone is happy to hear about the recent events. Our enemies.

Nature usually suffers from her relationship from us. We typically enjoy her bounty. But when we take advantage, she can be vengeful.

Take Stock

2005-08-30T14:02:00.000-07:00

By any external measure I am a success. I am, after all, a doctor. Within my department I feel that people respect my clinical abilities. Being regarded as a person of some quality, within a profession of some respect, measures out to some success. Medical students and residents know this measure well. In turn I measure out what I think is due.

I am married. My wife is very excellent. My daughter is lovely. At two she is my favored asset and by the end of her college education will be my greatest financial liability. Only to be rivaled by future siblings.

However. My internal measures are not so flattering. My question to myself is: Have I done as well as I could have? Could I have done better? Could I have published my first or second book by now? Could I have created something to make this world a better and more magical place by now: music, writing, invention, program? Could I have made so much more money? Could I have thrown myself into pleasure with more reckless abandon before settling into the pasture of marriage? Could I have drunk more at the waters of life?

The answer, it seems to me, is yes. Yes to all.

Taking stock of my life I’m compelled to see the things that might have been. I see myself as the better self I could have been, were it not for the choices I made that created the pressures that made me. But it isn’t over yet.

One of my friends once commented that he wished he had 20 to 30 points less IQ. Then he could be happy. He’d happily go about his life and become a mindless orthopedic surgeon. He’d find it challenging enough and make lots of money. In a way he wanted to commit suicide, but he only wanted to kill off some of himself, not all.

I wouldn’t go that far. I’d probably only require 5 IQ points. Or 5%, whichever is less.

On the other hand, if I had 5 more points, then perhaps...

Still Alive

2005-08-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

One of my mentors from my residency has a fatal illness. Initially it was not thought to be too serious, but now it is discovered to be serious and far advanced. It's horrible, not only for his family, which includes children and a wife, but for him. He was a very driven man, who had excellent credentials which came, not from high birth, but from natural ability and hard hard work.

Now he's going to die. What was it all worth? He is going to be cut off mid career. It's silly, perhaps, to discuss this when more serious things are afoot. But that's the type of person he was. Work was of vital importance to him. It fed him. It was more important to him, clearly, than much else in life. And now it will end.

He was the type never to be satisfied, which I suppose is what so disturbs me. He never saw what he did as good in and of itself. Instead, it was an advancement to the next level. In his case, the next advancement, the next grant, the next conference, the next paper. He never rested on his previous actions.

And now what does all that mean, when there are to be no more advancements? No more nexts? Death is ugly. But we all have to face it. We all have to prepare for it. Sadly, I don't think recognizing the fact of death will change us at all.

Doc NOS gets Hosed

2005-08-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

When I read a recent NY Times article on long waits and patient horror stories I thought, "that sucks. You shouldn't have had to wait 2 hours to see your doctor, but somethings are unavoidable. I've waited overnight to get on a plane. I've waited for the bus/subway/train. As well as for dates, lunch, drinks, and groceries." And the next thing I thought was, "it doesn't happen to my patients."

Not so fast.

As you could guess, some patients take longer than others. Some are in and out, ask few or no questions, are satisfied with your answers, and leave. Others take longer.

A few mornings ago, I had a longer patient. On a side rant, what is wrong with some people's receptive language? When I ask "When did your pain start?" The answer should not be "You know, the pain is right here, and it burns." Although that is good information, it is not the information I asked for. If you asked me my favorite color, I would not say three. This seems to happen time and time again and it really irks me.

So after the longest time possible, during which time I did uncover when the problem began, I finally got to the point of telling them the diagnosis. Then there were questions. And then I was late.

But when patients leave the office, I'm not done. I have to make sure the paperwork is in order, that the orders are in order, and that my mind is ready to leave the last patient and focus on the next. In all, this takes about 3 minutes.

That left me 10 minutes late for my next patient. And he wasn't taking it. He huffed and he puffed and he blew out a rant. After I said I was sorry (I found out later he'd shown up an hour early, so I'm sure it seemed very late to him), I did tell him that 10 minutes wasn't all that bad, but I was sorry. And when I think about it later, he was right - it sucks.

Dear last patient: this was you and your mind's inability to answer simple question's fault, yet I have to deal with the consequences.

And then it ended. The patient became nice again, and we went on with life.

The problem is that no-one wants me to see them late, but most everyone wants to keep me late. I'm going to have to impose strict time limits. This show will last one half hour, then time to move on.

Vacation! Not Mine.

2005-08-20T16:05:00.000-07:00

I think those of conservative natures are finally becoming shamed by Bush's behavior. At the same time, the war in Iraq is more clearly not going well, more clearly a mess that Bush brought Americans into based on lies, with no good outcome in sight. When you have Kissinger talking about recent events in Iraq bringing up "poignant memories" in the Wash Post, only an administration as wacked out as this one could spend 5 weeks on vacation.

Domestically, we're in a recovery, I guess. Hard to tell from my last few visits to the ER, which looked like something out of a refuge camp, except more people spoke English. Still have to talk to people having cardiovascular events without having any RF controled: either now or in the future. I suppose the top 1% is doing very well. As are those who bought houses on either coast - Bush is happy to ride the real estate boom. What will America have should that prove not to be a bedrock of economic stability?

This random association of recent news flashes have fixed themselves besides images of Bush on vacation. In case you didn't know, he's going to Idaho for a fishing trip. Glad things are so wonderful at the top that you don't even have to work.

It all brought me back to Bush's last vacation: he took the call at 2 AM, flew to Washington, and Schiavo was still allowed to finally die.

Things that haven't woken Bush up at 2 AM now include:
- The lack of a functional US energy policy while gas prices soar.

- Firing Rove or whoever leaked Plume's name (but this is a story with a double hump at least - we'll hear more).

- Coming up on 2000 dead US soldiers in Iraq - didn't feel the need to go to Ohio after 14 from one company died. Meanwhile, not that the president reads (such things), the New York times reports, "For the second time since the Iraq war began, the Pentagon is struggling to replace body armor that is failing to protect American troops from the most lethal attacks by insurgents."

- A mother of a dead US soldier asking to speak to Bush. Much like the insurgents, she only needs to maintain herself and her press. Bush's response is to allow this to occur with no plan in sight.

- Social security - wasn't that in some sort of emergent crisis?

Hey neocons out there: going to defend our fitness president? Some of these things (the Iraq war ought to be thought of as Bush's responsibility) are not Bush's fault. But the fact is he spends time on vacation while these occur.