Random Thoughts for January
2020
By Robert A. Hall
Feel free to post or forward.
The bad news is that I have severe osteo-arthritis in my
right hip. It has been painful for several months. I walk with a cane, which
helps. There is pain on the outside of the hip, but the sharp pain comes on the
crease between thigh and groin. I assumed this was a pulled or inflamed tendon.
Nope. The VA rates pain on a 1-10 scale. When I’m sitting around, it’s about a
one. When I walk, maybe a two, or three if I hit it wrong. When I get in and
out of a car, climb stairs, or bend over, I tend to hit it wrong, and it barks
at me, maybe a 4 or 5. I had a hip X-ray last week before my six-month lung
review, then a PT appointment at 3:00 pm on Thursday, 12/19. The physical
therapist says that the pain on the crease isn’t a tendon, it’s from the hip
joint. The cartilage is mostly shot. It is much worse than my X-ray in 2018, about
18 months ago. A hip replacement is not an option as I’m a transplant patient
and immune suppressed. So, if one of those nasty infections developed, it would
be Bad Day at Black Rock. The PT gave me some exercises and exercise options.
Exercise lubricates it, which is why I hurt less at the end of my workday (M-W)
at the VA than at the start. I bought a stationary bike (just peddles on a
four-point stand I can put in front of my computer) Water steps in a warm pool
(if one can be found) should help. I will continue to march. Limping with a
cane. “Motion is lotion.”
Putting on my right sock in the morning has become a major
challenge.
The irony is that my last association management job before
pulmonary fibrosis forced my retirement to get a lung transplant was as
Executive Director of the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons. Now that
I need a hip replacement the lung transplant rules me out!
I talked to an IT professional,
who told me he didn’t like Trump, didn’t vote for him last time. But he said
both his pay and his investments are way up compared to under Obama. He’s
afraid any of the Democrats will make that go away, so he’s going to hold his
nose and vote for Trump this time.
January is a
good month to go thrift shop shopping as folks donate their old stuff after
getting new on Christmas.
Prince Andrew has been expelled from the
Royal Family for his relationship with Jeffery Epstein. But Bill Clinton. who
reportedly made 26 trips on Epstein's "Orgy Express" to the Island of
Underage Sex Slaves, remains a beloved prince of the Democratic Party. "Stain
Sans peur et sans reproche."
I read that heroin kills far
more people than guns. But druggies are in the leftist base, so hands off.
The “new normal” is not normal.
Jerks have manufactured
“traditions” around important life events (marriage, promotion, birthday,
graduation) that allow other jerks to be jerky.
If you want to make your
employees less productive, update their computer programs every chance you get.
Some people think that after
they die, then can still control what people do, even though they can’t control
them now.
If a big hand slapped every
bureaucrat upside the head when they made a decision based on process and rules
that produced a worse a worse outcome for people, the government would be 500%
more responsive in a year.
One of the drawbacks of buying
clothing at a thrift store is that if the garment needs to be dry cleaned, it
costs more than the original investment.
I loath white supremacists as
much as I loath those people who are trying to make “white” an ethnic slur.
Just as I loath black supremacists, Muslim supremacists and any other group
supremacists.
People say they are proud of
being gay. If gay is not a choice, and I think it isn’t, then they should be
neither proud nor ashamed. The same with being white, black, etc. Or tall,
short or having blue eyes. These are things you didn’t choose, nothing to be
proud or ashamed of. You should be proud of the things you have accomplished
through your own efforts, tenacity, intellect, and resiliency. I suppose people who are proud of their
race or ethnic group haven’t accomplished anything on their own to be proud of.
License plate in Madison, WI:
DISTURBD
Bumper
sticker in Madison, “What Would Scooby Doo?
At the VA, I saw a Marine vet
wearing a USMC cap, while sitting at table eating with his wife. That maggot
needed more time with his DI!
Since they say that money is the
mother’s milk of politics, it didn’t surprise me to find out when I was elected
to the Massachusetts senate that
legislators could be bought. But I was surprised at how cheaply. (Of course,
there were many good ones I don’t think touched a bad penny.) The joke around
the state house was, “I can’t be bought. But I can be rented for the afternoon
at favorable rates!” If a lobbyist gave a legislator money to vote a certain
way, it’s a bribe. But if they put money in the legislator’s campaign fund,
it’s smart politics and legal. Or now, in the politician’s ‘charitable
foundation,’ which can be used as a slush fund.
I keep
forgetting to buy Prevagen.
Our friend Alison was telling me
she read an article that suggested slavery, with an elite giving the workers
their orders and providing subsistence food, housing and clothing, was a
perfect example of socialism.
Nasty is
called for when nice only allows and evil person to get close enough to hit you
again.
The inevitable
will happen. So, eventually will much of the impossible.
Smokers and alcoholics
are drug addicts.
Many people
are able to convince themselves that God wants what they want.
Get the collection! My
“Random Thoughts” from 2009 through July, 2013 are collected in this book: The Old Jarhead's Journal: Random Thoughts on Life,
Liberty, and Leadership by Robert A. Hall
The Old Jarhead’s
Journal is a collection of Random Thoughts on politics and life and
Conservative Political Essays, mostly published on the author’s blog, including
the essay “I’m Tired” which went viral on the Internet in 2009, “The Hall
Platform,” “This I Believe,” and “Why I’m a Republican.” While they will be of
interest to conservative thinkers, they are collected here in book form as a
service to readers who wish to give a copy to favorite liberals and watch their
heads explode. All
royalties are donated to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund.
*****
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five
terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic.
http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-American-Republic-prevent/dp/1461122538/ref=sr_1_5?s=booksandie=UTF8andqid=1304815980andsr=1-5
For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail
him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s twelve books are listed here: http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html.
His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com. He currently works
part-time as a writer-editor in the My Life, My Story program as the Madison VA
hospital, interviewing vets and writing up their life histories.
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