Wow It's been a year!?

I hadn't realized it has been a year since I posted here. Much has happened.
I finally got a job last November, my back is still messed up but with insurance now I am able to get it fixed. My girlfriend and I are both working hard to pay off our debt. But it seems like the more we work, the more it costs to just survive.
The economy is worse than before. Texas is in the worst drought on record. We just finished the most brutal summer with 5 months of no rain and 45 plus days of temperatures in the 100's.
Some thing somewhere has to change.

It is. About a month ago in NY a small group of people started what is now a nationwide movement. It is called "Occupy Everywhere" here are my feelings about it as posted on my facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/justwendy1

As many of you may have noticed I am a big fan of the occupy movement coming alive across the country right now. A man I respected very much once predicted that this would happen. He was both right and wrong (so far anyway) He believed that the people would rebel over the problems in this country but he expected riots. I am hoping this stays peaceful because it will only make a difference if they are and if all of us that have suffered in this plutocracy work to bring the change necessary to return us to a true democracy. Right or left, black, white, brown we all are hurting and have suffered in some way. The time for change has come. Support Occupy Houston, Occupy Everywhere. Be heard. good night.
good videos for you -

Health care in America - a crime

A few weeks ago I started having unbearable back pain. I figured it was just stress or I pulled it somehow. I go and get a massage. No help. I take OTC pain relievers and wait for it to go away.
Only this time it doesn't, it gets worse. Pain is shooting down my leg, I can't stand or walk for more than a few minutes, Now it's radiating around my ribs and I am having trouble breathing. My right side hurts.
Finally after 4 weeks of this getting increasingly worse, not being able to get into the local clinic I can't take it any more so I go to the local ER. I hate going to them for anything especially this kind of thing but really can't take any more. At first they we all nice, friendly, concerned and working to find out the problem. Then comes the "DOCTOR" , the one person making buttloads of cash for rubber stamping the work others do for him. He tells me I should have gone to a clinic or a real Doctor. Then to my shock and amazement he says "you need to go to a clinic and not come back here again.".
But, but damn it! I TRIED to go to a goddamn clinic. They are so overworked they don't have appointments for MONTHS. For fuck's sake don't these people LISTEN to what you tell them?
He sends me to the PA, they give me 12 vicoden and kick me to the curb, washing their hands of my kind.
I go home, dutifully eat my pain pills, try once again to get into a clinic (to no avail) and wait. And suffer.
Fast forward 3 days... it's worse. The pain pills are useless. Nothing has changed. So I go to another ER. This one with a reputation of being good. I am more prepared this time. I have a written littany of symptoms, the discharge papers from my previous exercise in futility, all my meds (including the empty bottles I have no way to refill). It starts out well, they have a plan of action, they are going to run x, y and z tests. They have a theory. I think "YAY!" real honest to god medical personnel that know their jobs and care! Until shift change.
My test results are in... the new doctor -that never even looked at my chart - walks in and says " Good news! :) your tests are all negative... there is nothing wrong with you!"
... I am speechless. "What do you mean?" As though suddenly the pain is all supposed to just magically go away cause your 3 tests found nothing? He stutters... "well what are your symptoms?" I repeat a portion of the littany. He tells me well maybe you should go see your regular doctor. Oh! I see! I am supposed to go see the clinic doctor that is so overworked I can't get an appointment anytime in the next 3 months. Just so long as I don't inconvenience you again.
The new nurse comes in and is in such a hurry to remove my IV port she lets blood drip down my arm and all over the room. Here is your Rx for stomach meds (!??!) now GTFO.

So here I sit, still in pain, still sick, several thousand dollars in the hole and absolutely NOTHING to show for it but further proof that our health care system is irrevocably broken and the medical profession is so full of incompetent, greedy, fools that it may as well not exist.

Welcome to the Corporate States of America. It makes me want to cry, scream and yell. This is not the United States I grew up in. Where the hell did my country go?

UNemployment - frightening

While sitting here looking at the news of oil spills and wildfires and record heat waves. I found this report on DailyKos. It is a very visually graphic way of showing just how incredibly bad things really are and why I am still unemployed. This is the longest stretch of unemployment I have experienced in my lifetime. It is depressing at a minimum. Watch this video to see what I mean.

A Month Later - more horrible than imagined

On April 27th I posted a blog about this oil LEAK in the gulf. Nearly a month later they have not stopped it nor slowed it down. The damage to the coast, animals and people is incalculable. The oil is now in the loop current that circles the gulf and goes up the east coast. It is many times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill. And the size is only increasing. This is heart breaking to me.


I have never been a fan of offshore drilling. Anyone who lives here knows there are small leaks all the time. The sands of Galveston are often covered in oil just a few inches under the surface.
That is a small inconvenience compared to this.


One of my favorite things to do on a nice day is ride the ferry and watch the dolphins alongside the boats. When a pod of 6 bottlenosed dolphins washed up on a Louisiana shore dead and covered in oil I cried.


The Gulf will not recover from this for decades, if at all. Most probably not in my lifetime.
I hope every day that those responsible pay with their freedom - they deserve nothing less than life on a La. chain gang cleaning up this toxic sludge they allowed to happen in the name of the almighty dollar. I know they will not.


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/05/bp-siphoning-5000-barrels-a-day-from-spill-spokesman-says.html

This is a story that NEEDS your attention.

Please take action by commenting.

The current oil leak (as of April 27, 2010) from the Deepwater Horizon rig owned by British Petroleum is a man-made disaster of epic proportions that threatens to disrupt the lives and life cycles of ALL sea life on the Gulf Coast for decades to come.
42,000 gallons of oil a day are pouring into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and nobody has figured out how to stop it.
It will destroy many natural habitats for fish/sealife and animals as well as humans. It will disrupt the lives of many people who are dependent on the gulf for their livelihoods.
Drilling like this without emergency shut off equipment and procedures is an un-excuseable lapse of safety and ethics. Please comment to deny any further deep-water leases until these concerns are met fully and openly by the oil companies to http://ocs5yeareis.anl.gov/.

This is a story that NEEDS your attention.
Here are links to the news stories and blogs about this:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/4/27/861087/-A-Slow-motion-Disaster-in-the-Gulf-%28Updated%29

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/26/860986/-Oil-spill-in-Gulf-of-Mexico-grows,-leaks-still-gushing-oil

From AP From Huffington Post (with NASA Pictures) From CNN