The REX 3 PDA & Satori Labs

Top - The Ebel Voyager Automatic (shown mainly for size comparison) - my good friend Dean sent this to me as a gift. For those of you in the ignorant masses who do not know, the machine below is a credit card sized wonder (for it's time!). I recently had the fortunate luck to email with the CEO of www.satorilabs.com about some soft/hardware his company is developing for Electronic Medical Records (EMR). I was very impressed to learn that some of the engineers and so forth came from Starfish/Motorola to Satori. The machine below the Ebel is called a REX (REX 3 in this case) and was very dependable - a simple but robust day planner, phone book to do list that never failed (until I smashed it with my knee one time!). So kudos to the people behind the REX - I am glad to be in touch to let them know I loved it. I hope to be able to introduce Satori Labs to the small hospital I work at. As we all know though, despite our incredible leader George Bush's wonderful support for healthcare for ALL Americans, our hospital's financial condition is less then excellent. However, EMR's goal is better and safer patient care and it is my hope that we could serve as an example of what might be possible. Ow, that is so damn optimistic I can't believe it . . . can somebody give me a reality check, please!? 

Post Mountain Bike crack up at Salt Point State Park at 30+ miles per hour. Underneath that smile is plenty of pain!  

It is now four days later and my pain is mainly confined to my left hip and elbow. What lessons did I learn from this incident? First, don't stop riding (as if!). It felt good to be taken care of by my best friend the Zipster, also known as Splash (aka Michael Singer - an incredible architect and Chief of the Timber Cove Volunteer Fire Department). Also of great assistance was Alex Dunne, with an incredible sense of wonderful irony, humor, fun and drollness (did I forget to say wicked good cynicism?).

Another good thing to come out of the spectacular wreck (I am so sorry to have not been able to see it) is that I can be even more empathetic with my patients. I have actually taken Vicodin for the first time in my life and am grateful I could. Waking up every hour from the pain was not fun. Vicodin is my friend but I am also very grateful I can start to taper off and just stick with the ice and ibuprofen to get the massive swelling down.

I can hardly wait to get on the bike again. This time I might just watch out for the 4 cm diameter branches! Ouch!

President Bush vs President's Inaugurals in General

A conservative friend challenged me about my previous post, asking me if I felt that way about all inaugurals. I told him that of course I let my hatred of the present administration prejudice me but that I would go on the record as being against anyone spending seventeen million dollars on an inaugural.

It was an excellent call on his part. Was Clinton as arrogant a son of a bitch as Bush is though? Bush is just all too fired up (using his own 'Texas' vernacular that is so over being cute) as to his own rightness in the eyes of Jesus and God having a direct pipeline to what he feels is his brain.

But come to think of it, the Executioners and Prosecuters of the inquisition had that same pipeline to Jesus . . . ergo we will be alright and have nothing to fear. Damn, I am feeling better already.

More Proof of a President's Thoughtless Arrogance

The cost of tomorrow's inauguration is now reported in the press as topping Seventeen million dollars. The word obscene comes to mind as do other even less flattering adjectives. Ok, I admit it, I hate the idiot. I was going to say that maybe I could not do much better . . . but in reality, I know I could. I would not squander that money on an inauguration when Americans are dying much less the Iraqi people (over 100,000 dead now and counting?).

As for my silence in the past few months I can only claim nursing school. I hope to remedy that by writing and posting more (even if no one ever reads this, after all I imagine it is mainly for my myself). Also, I graduate in May 2005 if all goes well.

So in keeping with my commitment to publish more I will do so now and end here.

One Hundred and Twenty People dead and it's a 'Bad Day'?

The World Today - Thursday, 29 July , 2004  12:25:00
Bad day of violence, as more than 120 are killed

I hope someone at The World Today gets their knickers twisted oh so tightly over this stupid, ill thought out, badly conceived, tasteless title of an article.  If 120 people were killed in Australia (or the United States or most other locations on the globe) it would be much more than a 'bad day'. 

I want to know who titled this piece - I would think about letting them go unless they could give me an explanation.  Either fire their hurtful and idiotic ass, or ship them to the bombing site and insist they clean up body parts and patch together the wounded.

What do I want out of this?  I want some decent reportage, some thoughtful, analytical, respectful, objective analysis.  I want the emotional impact relayed to me as much as possible so as not to numb us (too late for that I imagine?).  I do NOT want pithy, cheeky monkey, smart comments that seemingly trivialize the wounded, the dying and the suffering.

I generally like The World.  I listen to them regularly along with the BBC, NPR and a host of other news sources.  They offer great coverage but somehow this struck me wrong.  When one person is killed it is more than a 'bad day'.  A 'bad day' is when you are in an auto accident, when you burn the cookies, when you lack water for a day.

When 120 people are killed it is an abomination.  It is a loss that affects each of us, it lessens us (with apologies to John Donne) and lessens our humanity.  One hundred and twenty people killed?  It enrages me, it is a disaster, it is sadness and horror and is is anything and everything but a 'bad day'.

Suffering and Dying with Heroin

I recently worked a shift in the Emergency Room. After a few years, you certainly assume a patina or shield to protect you from the wear and tear inflicted upon you mentally. Even non-medical personnel have heard of ‘hardened attitudes’ and the incredible sense of humor (dark and otherwise!) that we develop in this business. However, even that is sometimes not enough. At times, I struggle to keep perspective, to remember that all of us make our choices about which path we take, what steps come next. I struggle to remain as nonjudgmental as I humanly can. Yet, I continue to fail and to struggle.

A young man (mid 20’s) came into the ER for an abscess on his foot (gender, names, places have either been omitted or changed to protect confidentiality). Open and honest, he informed us during triage that he is addicted to heroin, has been for three years and is using 3 grams a day. Hence the abscess and his own attempt to lance it having failed, his journey to the hospital. He was one of the nicest patients I have ever dealt with and everyone in the ER took a liking to this guy. He was unfailingly polite, nice, soft-spoken, apologetic and understanding. We caused him considerable pain when we lanced the abscess (despite numbing agents and pain medication), yet he did his best to remain calm. I held his hands during that time and I think it helped – he said it did. Pain medication is a difficult issue with people who are so used to it. A normal dose is anything but normal when dealing with nerve endings that are so saturated.

After draining the abscess, we packed it with sterile gauze. He had an IV established immediately after being admitted to the ER and continued to receive antibiotics (Vancomycin, a real heavy hitter) and any pain meds through the IV. Almost every vein and artery was useless. I told a nurse I would call her goddess for the rest of the day if she got access within two trys (and she is one of the best!). She did it on the second try and we all cheered (and as promised, I called her goddess for the rest of her shift). We also started him on Methadone because he indicated that he would like to try to ‘kick’ the habit once again (having failed previously). Once we had a bed open in Med/Surg, we took him down and got him settled.

This could be any of us. We all have our weaknesses, setbacks, chance encounters with fate and just plain bad luck. This one got to me though, it just broke my heart to see him in that much pain, so young and (looking 40 at least) flirting with death. He has avoided AIDS and Hepatitis by using clean needles and never sharing. He looks like hell, filthy, disheveled and obviously not taking care of himself. The heroin is taking care of itself and cares for nothing. I think that all else falls into nothing, the center cannot hold and this kid, this young man, this human . . . is into that downward spiral from which there is either no return or a very difficult one.

I will never forget this one. I wish the best for him. What I would like is for him to be happy – but he is not and may not ever be. I would like to meet him again some day, to see what he has made of himself and the promise that I told him I thought I could see . . . somewhere, some capacity to know, feel and understand the pain and suffering of others. I told him that I think we, as humans, have a duty and responsibility to lessen the pain and suffering of others in whatever ways we can.

For him though, only one thing is paramount. To feed the monkey, keep it off his back. To survive and try to heal.

I don't want to lose that ability to empathize, to care. But I got angry at myself for the sadness and anger that I felt. I retreated to the 5 x 10 closet we call our 'break' room, sat in a chair and cried. I can be a real tough guy at times, angry and mean when I have to be, but this was not one of those times. Somehow I am finding that balance, be it ever so precarious.

I am grateful.

Cute? Yeah, cuter than you ugly mugface man!

David McCullough and my nephew Brom Pedro Asebedo McCullough 

Mountain Bikes, lakes and a few of our favorite things . . .

David (left) and Zippy on February 2004 at Plantation Lakes, Northern California
Posted by David

Zippy the Pinhead is also one of my closest friends and we ride regularly up on the North Coast of California. The lake behind us is really called Lake Number One (the originality in that astounds me!) and was actually formed during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. We ride regularly directly on top of, across and on the San Andreas fault line which is awe inspiring. We both ride Santa Cruz Superlight Mountain bikes and are very happy with them. There is a huge variety of rides around here, single track, some very technical, some on fire roads and you name it, we probably have it somewhere close. We also are on the Timber Cove Volunteer Fire Proection District. He is the Chief, I am an EMT / Firefigher / Rescue guy. I love these guys and the job we do although I am not living here fulltime (it is a 1.5 hour commute each way to Santa Rosa). Riding the bikes is a way to stay in shape and have some damn good fun and comradeship.

D.

Aloha and being grateful for what you have and what one does Not have.

I hate trite but am guilty, guilty, guilty . . .

Aloha on a late night . . . tireness seeps through my bones and reflections resonate through my thoughts. My brother and wife have been together since they were 16 and now have a child. I was married once and even now I remembered that once I began desiring a child . . . that the full bright flame of that desire burned violently within me. Yet now, almost 15 years later, it still is there but also is the acceptance that I cannot have children of my own. There is some pain, burnished with great regret, sadness and love, empathy and desire.

There are far too many humans on this planet, I know this, yet my desire is not borne of logic or quantitative calculations of replacing the dead. My desire is from my heart, the same heart that loves my lovers 13 year daughter. Like my own daughter if I could have had one. My love for her is as unreasonable as a drowning man loving the rain, it exist without question, thought or desire, it is as immutable as the doppler red shift and the vibrating strings of the suspected twenty alternate possible dimensions.

Still, every time I see a baby my yearning washes over me in a cool and blistering tide. Each time I care for a child in the ER I think of my own selfish desires, if only for a brief moment.

This all brings new meaning to that idea of being grateful. I am, for so much of what I have and do not. I treasure my love for the people in my life, the women I have loved and love, the families who have taken me in on whatever continents shores I have washed upon. So be grateful, thank your god(s) for all that you have and do not have.

Wishing you health and happiness - whenever and wherever you are reading this.

Malama pono

David

Robin Williams "Plan"? No it's not, you Idiots!

The following is from an email I sent to a friend.

Please feel free to forward this response to those on your email list so they can correct the idea that Robin Williams sent that crap out! This so called 'plan' seemed way too mean spirited, thoughtless, cruel and unintelligent (did I mention knee-jerk and prejudiced yet?) to have come from someone like Robin Williams. I do not know him personally. However, he does not present himself this way at all and a friend of mine has acted with him and another has done business with him.  I have seen this passed around before so as usual I checked it out at: www.snopes.com and specifically at: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/williams.asp

Here is part of the text from that site:
Origins: We don't yet know who is responsible for the piece quoted above, but it definitely wasn't actor-comedian Robin Williams (of Mork & Mindy fame). This item's debut appears to have been a 20 March 2003 posting to the USENET newsgroup alt.motorcycles.harley, and from there it was rapidly disseminated via e-mail and blogs, credited to either "author unknown" or no one at all. The Robin Williams attribution wasn't tacked on until several weeks later, apparently because along the way someone appended a genuine Robin Williams quote to the list as an eleventh item: "The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'" - Robin Williams. Obviously the Robin Williams attribution for the final item was interpreted as applying to the list as a whole, so now the entire piece is making the rounds as 'the Robin Williams plan.' Last updated: 24 May 2003

This is David again . . .
As far as the United States total reliance on our oil addiction I recommend and excellent book (I have not finished it yet!) called: Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil by David Goodstein.

It is not my area of expertise but educational, readable and fascinating.  I agree with your suggestions about gas guzzlers and so forth. Gas in Northern Californa is now over $2.00 a gallon. Keep in mind that in most of the world it has been much more expensive than that for a long time.  If we tacked on the price of keeping the Gulf open and safe for shipping 'our' oil, the price would be even higher. Subsidized addiction so to speak. I love to hear Americans complain, the whiners! We simply refuse to recognize how lucky and absolutely spoiled we are.

Personally, I would expect something like that rascist and ignorant rant to come from some ignorant moke on a usenet group like alt.mororcycles.harley.  The puzzling thing is that most of the folks I know with Harley's are not knee jerk reactionaries like I am tending to be around this issue!  Obviously, I have my own prejudices to contend with in this regard.

A friend just bought one of those Toyota Hybrids. Maybe it is a start . . . I don't know. I think it is too late, the oil economy will gently slide down and eventually crash hard. Pessimism rules, at least at this writng. I don't think people give a damn or care to educate themselves.  It is easier to complain, to blame it on the outsider, easier to not think critically and just pass on thoughtful, engaged, well thought out critical thinking.

Look forward to working with you in the ER soon. Meanwhile, I better get back to burning oil in my car . . . I always remember to embrace and celebrate my guilt and the wanton destruction of our environment!

Love & Passion wedded to reason has some place in affairs of the heart.

Aloha! The below is a brief response to an acquaintance who is in love and considering a fiance visa to bring their love to the United States.

The fiance visa is no guarantee of smooth sailiing or long term success. However, my ex-wifes twin did it twice with her Australian fiance and it was a great thing for both of them. They still had thier problems/challenges. It will allow you both to evaluate each other in your indigenous environment. To evaluate yourself, your reactions to him in your world. Him to evaluate you, your relationsship, this country. All over time and not in the fresh love smashed haze of fresh love, untrammeld by time and tide (uh oh! here I go!).

I don't know you at all, nor your honey so maybe you have it all wired. You are young though and I advise so much caution in affairs of the heart. At the same time, would I have listened to my advice at the age I was when I was in love and had the boundless confidence that can come heart in heart wtih youthful passion? The confidence that can only come from untested faithful hearts, with endless faith that true love can overcome all?

I wax far too poetic. I offer you this - that one must follow thier passion and love. Yet somehow, in that volatile mix, let passionate reason be wedded with that most noble love that you bear with this man. Caution thrown to the wind is not caution, preservation of one's heart and soul must remain paramount, the guarding of the love you bear for each other is paramount.

So be cautiously in love but passionate. Temper one with the other but nurture both. It is making me sound so old, yet I am not and I remember like yesterday the invincibility. You sound wiser, more grounded, perhaps already wounded in love more than once or twice? I do not know.

So do call if you wish and I invite you too with all my heart. This love of yours, this greatest of journeys, this most perilous and lovely voyage of magnificence must be well thought out so as to be well lived. You are doing so, I commend you.

Though we know each other not a whit (and please forgive me my Shakespeare!) I wish you the best and hope for your happiness. You will find I am much more practical on the phone I think! But one must give voice to all shades and sides of the heart and here you have part of mine.

David

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers - being torn between worlds.

Aloha,

Many people ask a returned Peace Corps volunteer how they feel and what is it like to return. I am in touch via email with a volunteer who returned from Mongolia and here is a quote from an email. This echos so true to my own experience that it sums up so much in so few words. We are all torn between worlds.

> I'm torn between two worlds I guess. I get bored easily with life here, I see it as just
> working to pay bills. I need to get overseas occasionally to feel alive again.

For some of us lucky few, it is so easy to just get work and pay the bills with not much of challenge. So than what? We all want to feel alive, that frisson of excitement and meaning to wash over us in one unending tide and torrent of life.

David

Any ideas on Summer Medical Work out there? / Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil / Django Reinhardt & Gypsy Jazz

Aloha,

I am looking for summer volunteer medical work from June to August of 2004. If anyone reads this and has some ideas please let me know. I can stay Stateside and work for money but would rather do some refugee work or clinic work somewhere in Vietnam, China, Africa and so on and so forth.

This blog weighs on my mind. Weight, in that I committed to it but do not often utilize it. Most of the time I feel that I don't have enough of a worthwhile thought to burden others with. Yet, yet, yet . . . I receive a reply now and than, an email out of the hiss of cyberspace that makes its way to me. I send my thanks out to anyone who takes the time to write - even if in anger.

The only answer is to be more dedicated, to use material I write for other things such as my medical clinical journal that is ever so anonymous, to use my frustration and sadness at the State of the State/world.

Reading a new book of late that was reviewed in The New York Times. Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil by David Goodstein. I am only two chapters into the book but find it very readable and the science 'graspable' by myself (one with little training I assure you!). Still, running out of fuel for the entire world demands involvement from all of us no matter what training or education.

I ride my bike more than years ago. If I get a new car (never have to date!) then it will be a hybrid. I replaced all my light bulbs with energy efficent bulbs. I still continue to think it is too late though . . . but still do what I can to assuage my conscience.

Picked up a five CD set called, Django Reinhardt, The classic early recordings in chronological order. Plays Gypsy Jazz which I heard of recently on National Public Radio. I like this type of Jazz a lot - does not fit into the "great American Songbook" easily but those songs fit into Gypsy Jazz quite easily. Hope that makes sense - I still have a lot to learn about Jazz.

That is about it for now. I am going to study the my ballot to vote here in Northern California which is a challenge to me and going to require some research. Thank god we have the responsibility to vote. Lucky to be able to vote when roughly 2/3 of the worlds population does not have clean drinking water. What a luxury - voting and clean water.

My wishes of health and happieness to all who may encounter this! Aloha,

David

Death, California Governor, Afternoon Follies In Bhagdad

Death

Working in the hospital you see people die, good deaths, bad death, different yet the same. It is still hard to see a man die who has no family, who suffered so much, who perhaps knew not much human kindness till his last days and from people in a hospital.

Another death, this time of a close nurse friend who was only 62 years old. Someone said that it was not part of the normal course of life, that we expect something else. No to the first, yes to the second. It is a normal part of life, but we don't want to acknowledge the normalcy of death in one so young. She loved to dance in the ER late at night, a young 62, she taught me so much. It is here that I remember her and in my heart and mind.

California Governor

I did not vote for him but obviously he is an intelligent and motivated man. I am embarassed by California, yet am part of the State for a time. I am embarassed by our National Government, yet am part of it in my small way by my very presence on these shores. What angers and distresses me is the bloody outright and sneering rightousness of the Right, the Fascist, the Fundamentalist. I abhor them and denigrate what they do and thier beliefs. I am about as narrow minded or close minded as they are when I start ranting and raving like this. We are on the road to armegeddon, but not the one that they are preaching about in those unintelligent, stupid, trite and ultimately laughable and ridiculous (is that enough for you?) series of books called Left Behind.

Afternoon Follies
Does Bush and his Gang of Four really think they can spin the war on the American People? Of course they can, we lap it up like starved dogs because we cannot begin to believe we might be wrong in our pigheaded and disgusting headlong rush to own, conquer and sell the World. So we begin now, like Vietnam, a quagmire, body counts mounting, soldiers dying for each other, hoping to make it home alive. Is this what America stands for in the Constitution, our Declaration, our Bill of Rights?

We are betrayed by our leaders, betrayed by those on the right, led down the path to destruction by a minority of zealots who are no better than those they condemn of the same. Yet, all I do is rant and rave, speak out against them. If I go to Iraq on a medical mission (always a do gooder), am I perpetuating the problem? Or am I part of the solution by showing my face and learning to love another country? So our country continues to suffer our own problems yet we must continue to assist Iraq, but we need to leave and let them do their own work while continuing to support and ease the pain.

I must leave, I see no option. I am ashamed to be an American and most of the Americans I know hate what is happening to this country. Yet, in the same breath, I feel most Amerians love what is happening and would say to me, "Get the hell out then! This is America, love it or leave it!" So, Facism reigns paramount when dissent and questions are deemed unpatriotic.

What terrifies me the most? Our President's belief that God is with him and that he has divine inspiration. So did the Crusades and the Grand Inquisitors. In the end our Iraq policy will destroy the Bush Government, let us hope it does not destroy America, at least this time around.

Why we live . . . .

So the big questionl, yes? Why do you do that thing you do? Since that old time immemorial we ask silly things like that. The search for meaning (read Viktor Frankls - Mans Search for Meaning !). Perhaps not a thing matters except the scattered moments of brief clarity, the moment of comfort provided, the instant of a kiss, the promise of love unfulfilled, a hot summer day and the smell of fragrant blackberries, the beginning of healing a broken heart and body. There is so much more and yet, I am miserably unprepared to speak, to write.


So why does one care? So why do you exist? So why do you remain engaged in your life and not remake yourself?

David

Summer's End, Medicine's Beginnings, Voices from the Past

Ahhh . . . the end of summer approaches, my apple trees laden with the fruit of knowledge, the warmth of long summer days lingers in my bones. Most of this summer I was under the spell of chemistry at a local Junior College (sometimes referred to as a Community College in some environs of the United States). Here is a short limerick I composed under some duress as the instructor babbled away in an arcane chemistry incantation (the first line is his!) . . .

Meeses, Mices and Mooses,
I don’t know my ketoses from aldoses.
So please help me to understand,
why chemistry is like quicksand,
and I’m up to my neck in fructoses!


Singularly uninspiring for the average citizen of the State but to those poor souls who have been through the cauldron of Chemistry (especially in a Summer class!), they will appreciate it, perhaps a bit?

Don't get me started on the inefficacy of teaching chemistry in EIGHT weeks . . . the silliness, the inanity, the insanity, the idiocy, the vain assumption that some random, 'itsy', 'bitsy' piece of information will stick. Yes, some of it has, of course.

I begin Nursing school in two days. The culmination of two years of thought, hard work and anticipation. A few days off and a headlong plunge into that world. Wonderful people in the program.

So I have taken the time in the last few days to call friends not spoken to in too long a time. Called Paris, Honolulu, the Big Island and so forth. I still miss Fiji, Hawaii the people I have known. We have a December - January trip planned to the Big Island to see the flow of life from Kiluea to the sea, the City of Refuge. I will take the time to mend my heart and soul as only the land and people there can do to me and someday I hope to give that back. I will sit and have a welcoming kava ceremony and drink to the memory and future of my friends I will simply sit there and exist without thought, to be in the presence of all people whom have touched, affected, taught and existed in my short life.

I am so grateful for all of it.

Malama pono, moce mada,

David

Return from a 'Medical Misson' in Ensenada, Mexico - a Poem

I returned a week ago from a medical mission in Mexico. This is a poem I wrote to a Doctor and his wife (Thanks, Joel and Marta!) that hosted us and became our friends. My attempt to thank them and to begin to sum up the many feelings and experiences we were so honored to receive. To those of you familiar with Pablo Neruda . . . I hope you sense his influence somewhere in these humble lines!

To Joel & Marta,

I cannot speak your language,
but I feel and recognize the familiar face and language of love,
I have found here in Mexico.

I may not understand your language,
but I have experienced the compassion and forgiveness of Mexico.

I cannot understand what it is to be Hispano,
but you and Mexico continue to teach me the meaning and sacredness of memory.

I am so insignificant.
Like the grain of lonely sand on a beach of glittering stars,
that knows so little, speaks so little, understands so little.

Ah . . . but this grain of sand somehow knows you and this beautiful language you speak.

What we learn here lingers . . . .
past all life and death.
Past distant spinning galaxies,
amid the infinite wash of wave and tide.

My humble gratitude for this sacred gift,
of compassion and culture, of giving and receiving,
of sharing and grace, of redemption.

I may not speak your language,
but now understand at last.
Because of this . . . I am in your debt.

So the endless cycle continues,
we are bound to each other.
Sun to moon,
bee to flower,
ocean to earth,
Dirt to stone,
Friend to Friend.


David McCullough
June 20 2003
Ensenada, B.C., Mexico




Copyright June 2003

State of the World versus Supporting the United States Military

The following is a response to a friend who took umbrage with my comment that it would be a relief to get out of the United States for awhile while on a medical mission.

I did not say that we should not 'support military people'. My dad served, and I am still a proud air force brat
yet strive for a balanced and informed view.
 
However, a few points.
 
Point - I think we could support them by paying and educating them more.
 
Point - the USA has 5% of the worlds population, yet consumes 33.33% of the worlds resources. We use our military to maintain dominance in the world - so one reason we do so is to maintain our economy. The United States economy is based on constant, ever increasing growth and obviously, it cannot endlessly go up. Our present rate of growth is unsustainable, yet we arrogantly feel that it is our right, our 'sacred' right to do whatever we want precisely because of who we are. Is there so little understanding of why the world perceives the people of the United States as arrogant?
 
Point - we are one of the smaller nations on the planet population wise (291,090,632 as of today) versus the world population of 6,295,663,364 (as of today at www.census.gov). However, we spend the most money in the world, more than many countries combined on military funding. Is this moral? Is this justifiable? Is it what we want? Is it right? To compare . . . China has 1.2 Billlon people (approximately 1/5 of the world population) yet is 11th on the list of military expenditures. Russia's population is approximately 144 million and they are #2 on the list of military expenditures (we spend Four times the amount of Russia).
 
Point - we lock up a higher percentage of our population than any other nation on the planet! Is this the America that we want? Is this not a fundamental sign that perhaps, just perhaps the system is failing and we need to address the problem?
 
Point - we have the highest number of fat (grossly or morbidly obese) people on the planet (more so than any other nation)! This is sickening and is shameful. We are on the path to self destruction.
 
Point - our eductional system is in disarray and funding is dismal and obscene.
 
I do not think any of this is moral or just.
 
Get a copy of Jared Diamond's article in this months (May or June 2003) Harpers Magazine and read it. Every society
that outstrips its resource base (environment and so on and so forth) has failed (read dissolution and absorbtion)
relatively quickly thereafter.
 
America can stand for some excellent ideals. Yet we seem bent on domination, not only for oil but for ever more
markets to continue our expansion so we can sell ever more 'stuff' and increase our ability to maintain our position
and standard of living at the cost of others.
 
I want to see an America where every person on the continent (and the world) has health care.

I want to see an America where education is a priority and we support it with the finances it deserves.

I want to see an America that sets limits on the amount of consuming that every person can do.

I want to see more of an equitable balance between the haves and have nots.

I want America to be judged by how much money we spend on other nations, on how much we give to others instead of
keeping for ourselves.

I do not want America to be hated and resented because how we live is destroying the lives of others and the
biospheres capacity to sustain life.

I want to see a world where all have access to a clean and safe water supply (over 1/3 of the worlds population does
not including parts of America - admittedly small). 

We are marching down the road to a fundamentalist facism (much the same as in Iran where fundamentalist muslim
clerics are increasingly fascistic). We live in culture of desire, a manufactured desire that never wanes. Many
people seek for spiritual truths yet we are confronted by fundamentalist that, many times, preach hatred and
ostracism instead of harmony between all cultures and people.
 
I dread for the future of America. It saddens me that we have betrayed some of our espoused and supposed ideals. I am sad over the degradation of our society as the health care system fragments, the environment is assaulted, and our position in the world continues to depend on massive military force projected unilaterally across the globe. In many ways, this could be the beginning of the end, the last gasping, agonal breaths of a nation that has lost its moral compass and is adrift in a morass from which it cannot extract itself.
 
I do not have all the answers. To govern a nation is a terrible thing . . . of great beauty, frustration, power and
responsibility. Yet I fear for the future of America and of the capability we have to destroy that which so many
have worked for. I fear for the people of all nations, of all countries, no matter thier political borders.
 
I have not reviewed this so it may not be the most eloquently written. Please forgive me for that as I think you
know I write this out of concern and yes, even patriotism.
 
The time of separate nation states must come to an end, for if not, I fear for the survival of the planet. 

Indeed, I think it is already too late and most of the time, I struggle for optimism. Yet I shall not abandon
whatever small struggle I am engaged in. However, I do not believe that simplistic pap about healing the world one
little bit at a time. I do believe in the attempt, the sacred duty we have to others and to the planet that we call
home.

Aloha . . . tonight I am frustrated and angry at the current state of affairs, specifically the war the United States is prosecuting against Iraq. I consider it an unjust war (leaving open the inevitable question whether there is ever a just war) and am sickened, saddened and ashamed of the United States and its citizens. So what will I do? What can I do?

I wrote to www.refugeerelief.org (again, I have been in touch with them in the past). They are a bunch of 'go to' (to use an American colloquialism) guys whom I would proud to serve with. They engage in medical relief missions - thier website explains it well. I hope to be able to go in June 2003 when I am available. I need to go for my own sanity - getting tired of sitting on my butt in the white suburbs eathing my food, drinking my beer doing nothing to benefit anyone in the long run. Maybe getting back into the world will help.

In the end though, it is for me anyway. Oh sure, we may help a few people here and there, but really, how much can be done against a war that is going to rip through 100 billion dollars in six months. By god, I am against this war and I hate George Bush and somehow, somewhere, I am going to to what I can to fight against his simplistic, zealous, stupid schmuck idiocy. He nor hardly any of his advisers have even been out of the country. Most of them have no other language except English.

Get Colin Powell to be my President. I will work for him, I will vote for him. I may not like him as much as I do others but at least this guy isn't some good ole, aw shucks, lets nuke em asshole that Rumsfeld is. Even more dangerous is good old Wolfie Wolfowitz who in the 1980's authored a paper pleading for the American empire to (I am paraphrasing here) take over the world. Good deal huh? So we can sell more products I guess.

If anyone does ever read this please check out: http://dearraed.blogspot.com
I read about this person through Googles news site link and found it fascinating reading.

I don't want to see the USA die. We stand (supposedly) for some great ideas. We are just lousy at the execution. Our leaders betray us and betray the long term survival of the United States as a nation, as a beacon of hope for repressed peoples . . . but I will never forget this and neither should anyone; that I can only write this because of my privilaged position as a U.S. citizen. However, it is because of this that I have (or hope to have and maintain) a dedication to show a different face to the world and to somehow fight the good fight, engage in the struggle for tolerance, peace and all that other liberal crap I espouse. In the end, it won't do any bloody good, humans are too stupid and selfish en masse.

For now though, at this moment, I go to put the sweetest 12 year old girl I know to bed, to tuck her in and kiss her goodnight and sweet dreams (and pray I don't dream of dead people in my own dreams that haunt me from the ER, from the reading, from the television). How I long to protect her yet instill some sense of justice and duty. Thank god I can go to her, her beautiful mother, and forget, if just for a little while the horrifying tenor and cadence of death and disaster being sowed in Iraq. I will think of the Iraqi's tonight and hope for safety and peace for them and the soldiers that fight on both sides. I must remember compassion.

Thanks for reading this.

David
tuisuva@jps.net

Remembering compassion

Aloha . . . tonight I am frustrated and angry at the current state of affairs, specifically the war the United States is prosecuting against Iraq. I consider it an unjust war (leaving open the inevitable question whether there is ever a just war) and am sickened, saddened and ashamed of the United States and its citizens. So what will I do? What can I do?

I wrote to www.refugeerelief.org (again, I have been in touch with them in the past). They are a bunch of 'go to' (to use an American colloquialism) guys whom I would proud to serve with. They engage in medical relief missions - thier website explains it well. I hope to be able to go in June 2003 when I am available. I need to go for my own sanity - getting tired of sitting on my butt in the white suburbs eating my food, drinking my beer doing nothing to benefit anyone in the long run. Maybe getting back into the world will help.

In the end though, at least I am smart enough that doing relief / medical work is for me anyway, it is largely a selfish enterprise so I can feel better about myself and just maybe my guilt about being an American. Oh sure, we may help a few people here and there, but really, how much can be done against a war that is going to rip through 100 billion dollars in six months. By god, I am against this war and I hate George Bush and somehow, somewhere, I am going to to what I can to fight against his simplistic, zealous, stupid schmuck idiocy. He nor hardly any of his advisers have even been out of the country. Most of them have no other language except English.

Get Colin Powell to be my President. I will work for him, I will vote for him. I may not like him as much as I do others but at least this guy isn't some good ole, aw shucks, lets nuke em asshole that Rumsfeld is. Even more dangerous is good old Wolfie Wolfowitz who in the 1980's authored a paper pleading for the American empire to (I am paraphrasing here) take over the world. Good deal huh? So we can sell more products I guess.

If anyone does ever read this please check out: http://dearraed.blogspot.com
I read about this person through Googles news site link and found it fascinating reading.

I don't want to see the USA die. We stand (supposedly) for some great ideas. We are just lousy at the execution. Our leaders betray us and betray the long term survival of the United States as a nation, as a beacon of hope for repressed peoples . . . but I will never forget this and neither should anyone; that I can only write this because of my privilaged position as a U.S. citizen. However, it is because of this that I have (or hope to have and maintain) a dedication to show a different face to the world and to somehow fight the good fight, engage in the struggle for tolerance, peace and all that other liberal crap I espouse. In the end, it won't do any bloody good, humans are too stupid and selfish en masse.

For now though, at this moment, I go to put the sweetest 12 year old girl I know to bed, to tuck her in and kiss her goodnight and sweet dreams (and pray I don't dream of dead people in my own dreams that haunt me from the ER, from the reading, from the television). How I long to protect her yet instill some sense of justice and duty. Thank god I can go to her, her beautiful mother, and forget, if just for a little while the horrifying tenor and cadence of death and disaster being sowed in Iraq. I will think of the Iraqi's tonight and hope for safety and peace for them and the soldiers that fight on both sides. I must remember compassion.

Thanks for reading this.

David
tuisuva@jps.net

Aloha . . . I am currently acting in a production of The Laramie Project. It is staged at Santa Rosa Junior College in Northern California. For me, it raises the whole idea or question that I think many of us should be asking of ourselves. What do we want to contribute to society? This has the implicit assumption that we should or want to contribute and that in and of itself, it is a good thing to do so. So what, as an actor do I want to contribute? Why be an actor at all? What do actors contribute to society that improves it and makes it better?

For the most part, I don't think much. Most actors do what they need to survive. Most of us cannot do shows like The Laramie Project when there is no money involved. I am lucky to be able to do a show like this. Very lucky.

Can an actor go from being a piece of fruit in an underwear commercial to doing Brecht, Shakespeare, Ionescue and still be taken seriously? I do not know but I suspect perhaps not.

Don't we, as members of society, have a duty to do 'serious' theater? At least once in awhile so we can prick the balloon of "everything is ok in the world so lets just laugh our way to hell"! At the same time and in the same breath, I would give a lot to work with Steve Martin on just about anything. I am corruptible, offer me enough money and I might reconsider . . . or would I? Could I use the age old excuse of saying, let me sell out now, make the money and spend it later to salve my conscience! I don't know for sure but I hope not and don't think I would.

Special hello to my Hawai'i gang. It was great to talk with Jim Hesse the other night at 1 a.m. in California while I was slaving away on cultures for my bacteriology lab. A long way from home and a long way from a bunch of very wonderful people.

Aloha

Aloha,

Called a group named the good Samaritans today, basically a group of flyers and docs who go down to Baja Mexico and do medical work on the weekends. Personally I think it sounds great unless you crash and burn which could screw up anybody's day once you get down to it. Still, the chance to do some medicine, eat good food and maybe see some warm water for once? Yeah, let me at it baby.

So U.C. Davis saw fit to reject my application to the Physican Assistant program for this year. A small entering class and another 40% cut on top of that (Thank you Governor Gray Davis and the Senators and Assemblypeople of the State of California. This may just get me mad enough to run for State office someday so I can put my big mouth on the bloody line instead of just shooting it off. At any rate, the alternate (note the decided nonuse of the word, 'backup'!) plan is a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. I am working on the application now. If the university gets it together and thebudget is available there may be an accelerated Masters of Science in Nursing I could get through in one year.

Meanwhile I hate the Northern California winter and the incredibly wishy washy new age crap that gets espoused here. I did not understand when I was at UCLA. Now, thank god after years out of the country, I now know and understand. These people are so incredibly spoiled they have the time to indulge themselves in a frenzy of intellectural and spiritual masturbation. Hell, I am guilty of it too, look upon these pages those who doubt my words! My hope is I will actually DO something about it like I have in the past.

I still mourn leaving Hawaii. Being here for my dad as he lay dying was good, the right thing to do but I left Hawai'i so fast. I miss my home. For me it was home and I still feel no kinship with this place. My whole life has always been moving in some way but Hawai'i . . . despite its problems and dominance by the Haoles (people looking like me brah!) is still a wonderful, warm, deeply spiritual (not the Northern California fake spirituality crap), welcoming place (as long as you are sensitive that the white folks have no business being there and need to shut up and act like the guest they are!

It is late and I am about to lapse into incoherency once again. I long for the islands, not just Hawaii but Fiji, Tonga, Rarotonga and on. I remain in America because of an incredibly loving, beautiful woman and her incredibly beautiful and loving daughter.

I had something deemed hurtful, insensitive and offensive here so this last paragraph was edited for content.

Malama pono, a hui hou. Moce mada, dua na siqa.

Tevita, Kawika, David

Aloha . . .

People who want to make a difference should get smaller dwellings, ship excess materials like the
gold chandeliers to the 'poor starving people' overseas so they can at least have better lighting while
they slowly expire from AIDS, a lack of clean water, lack of clean food and a lack of caring by the
rest of the world. I look in the mirror every day (well, at least a few times a week) and think to
myself, Ok pal, what the ______ are you doing besides whining like a jerk? The answer is
not goddamn much at all.
 
So when I get done with school, if I don't just get overseas again (and I hope to god
somehow and someday I will!), if I buy a car I will get a hybrid or at least a four cylinder, I
will try to not own as much stuff, I will convert a house (if I ever own one) to solar and
have it feed back into the grid and whatever else I can.
 
Yo! Where did all that spring from! Sorry to rant and rave but this huge deal about
seven dead people pisses me off! I honor them but wonder about the thousands dying
every day because of people like me. The Columbia astronauts knew the danger, they
would not call themselves heros but simply people doing the job they were trained for.

Firefighters are not heros. They do thier job as told and as trained to do whether we
are volunteers or paid. In the Emergency Department we do our jobs to the
best of our ability.

We should mourn those who die because of our inaction, we should not only mourn
but take mindful action with great purpose and direction aimed at alleviating suffering
and injustice no matter where it resides.
 
Remember, self hatred is good . . . to an extent.

I went on the Peace March in San Francisco last week. I could not help but think it was a wasted gesture. I heard an organizer of the march say on KQED (San Francisco's Public Radio station) that the " . . . White House was reeling . . . " . That was the most inane, stupid and illogical remark I have heard in a long time. She obviously has not spent any time in the Federal Government or the White House. Bush could care less and no one was 'reeling' from a few yahoos marching for peace.

Want to make a difference? Give up one of your cars. Don't consume so much stuff. Volunteer a few hours a week to those who need help. Go on working vacations to developing nations. Don't be a pig when you eat. Develop a conscience for your sake and others. Commute on a bicycle.

In short (and as we all know), talk is cheap. I sure as hell need to do more. I knew of my brothers neighbor who drive very expensive gas guzzler cars and they march down to the peace demonstration. So get on those moral high horses people but don't change your life - it is just too inconvenient.

So now we have another convicted criminal heading up the information police. I refer of course to Admiral Poindexter who was pilloried for lying to Congress. Imagine that . . . we live in a country where our leaders lie to us in the 'interest of National Security'. I find it so hard to believe that, I mean really . . . our own leaders? Gosh, what is the world coming to? I for one, feel safer from the godless masses when 'Admiral' Poindexter is at the helm of our great nation. He and Oliver North are true heros for standing up for thier beliefs. Yes folks, the more things change, the more they really, really stay the same.

How do we know if our species will survive? Living in Northern California I am subjected to boundless optimism from some quarters of our society. An aquaintence said that she lives with the hope that if even one person becomes enlightened that it may spread far beyond that one person to population of the world. Take at a look at the population clock at www.census.gov why don't you for god's sake! So let's do this . . . calculate the spread of enlightenment (statasticians out there take note!) versus population growth. My point, stunningly obvious of course, is that population growth far outstrips enlightenment (or learning). Most of us never become enlighened and if we are, some of us don't even give a damn. Who has time for enlightenment when you don't have clean water and are starving?

At least we are doing our part in America where our society depends on consumption. We are the fattest nation on the planet. We have more obese people per square mile on the face of the planet than anyone else! I for one am proud to be in a country that can do that. It should serve as an alternate source of energy, we could have liposuction processing plants (LPP's) next to power generation plants. Not only that, we lock up a higher percentage of our population than any other country on the planet. I am proud of that capability. It proves we are superior to everyone else.

Yeah, so another rant and rave. So what? I'm not doing anything to make it better. Hell, even som conservatives are doing more than I am! So if you want some facts and the sources? Look them up yourself, read a little and learn how to manipulate the web for your satisfaction.
By the way, nah, I'm not bitter, just angry, cynical and a realistic pessimistic optimist.

I think we all wonder at times about if what we write will withstand the test of time. Obviously, some people don't give a damn at all. I find myself somewhere inbetween. I wonder, but in the end am fairly sure of the triumph of meaninglessness over much of what we humans do. Depending on my mood, very sure of it in my own case! Isn't a journal or a BLOG inveterate narcissism? I think so . . . .

I had my interview last week with U.C. Davis for the Physician Assistant program. It went well and I interview well. Still, competition is fierce and I may not get in. I still feel deep in my soul that much of my short life has led me up to this point. The point of being able to apply, the chance to earn a decent living in an honourable profession that I feel passionate about. Medicine can be a profession that can either really help you, be of marginal use (until you are sick!) or end up killing you. Still, the commitment is fierce and I endeavour to have purpose, to contribute, to find meaning in a life.

I will receive an answer by February 1 2003. I hope that whoever reads this, someday, will or has found something to be passionate about in thier life, that you are making some kind of contribution to the world. Ethical or moral imperatives? Yes, there are, at least for me.

From Paris to Tokyo

The following is from a letter to a friend in Paris now on their way to Tokyo.

Do you wonder about the future much? I think that most humans assume they have one, that we live our lives based on the assumption that we will be alive for some years. If so, what do you see for yourself? What do YOU want I wonder? Can you continue doing what you love into your 60's and 70's barring significant health problems? Do you want to?

I just wonder how I will be dealing with life later and of course that brings the question up for friends around me. It touches upon larger questions too, at least for me - the question of gee, What IS it all about Alfie? Why and what are we here for and in the end, does knowing that answer make any possible difference in what we do? Should we even care?

I know that I do, not only about the question and answers but about the process of getting there,which may be to the place of never knowing, that old answer about the journey itself being the answer all along.

Anyway, late night musings but I would love to hear from you about it. It is a late night beer drinking scotch swilling tropical night question over kava bowls and Fijian singing with the full moon rising and trade winds blowing.

All the best to you my traveler friend.

My first posting or blog . . . taking my own advice to a friend currently in Paris to start his own blog as he has been an inveterate journal writer in his global travels for so many years. Currently back at University, I am in transition once again to a new career and hope to start summer of 2003 in a Physician Assistant program. Eventually I hope to joing the Peace Corps again or work with Medicines Sans Frontiers. For now though, it is back to work.