porchwise's Blog

Yesterday I received a 9x12 mailer from Senator McCain.  In it was a picture of McCain and his missus and a three page letter with my name embedded in the text.  In short, a relatively expensive mailing.  As a life-long Democrat, I think someone in the Republican party is wasting a lot of money doing this type of spam mailing.  Personally, I could care less because I'm getting quite used to the government in generally wasting my money.  Facts and figures don't lie unless some politico puts a radical spin on them and the Republicans have handed the next administration the largest debt in our nations history. It will take a monumental effort to pull us out of this quagmire and the Republican Adminstration has shown it just can't do the job (or doesn't want to).  Another administration like this and we're simply going down for the count.

Senator McCain says out Social Security is being paid by the young of America.  I paid for my Social Security with 55 years of hard work.  McCain collected over 23 thousand in 2007 in Social Secuity cash.  If he thinks it's a disgrace, why don't he give it back?

Nope, it's time for a change, and Barack Obama is the only one I see who will be able to get us out of this mess.

I'll be happy when February '09 has come and gone.  That banner-stream that seems to be running across my television every ten minutes is driving me bonkers.  Maybe I'm just assuming too much, but I find it highly unlikely that hardly anyone doesn't have cable or a dish yet.  I realize, especially in this economy, that there are some folks who just can't afford this aminity as budgets just won't allow it, but I would bet on the side that most folks find ways to have either aminity in their homes.  The rooftop antenna is disappearing faster than ice cream at a birthday party.

Is it my imagination or is Mobile becoming the murder capital of the south?  It seems like every newscast now features a murder or two. 

I suspect the powers-that-be need to toughen up (and enforce) the existing gun laws.  God knows, we don't need any more laws as the laws on the books are enough.  I think the problem here is the enforcement.  Can you walk into a pawn shop and walk out with a gun?  You shouldn't be able to because every state has a waiting period while background checks are done.  Are the pawn shops in Mobile and Pensacola doing that?  I believe we all (if we're a lawabiding citizen) have the privilege of gun ownership, whether for protection or hunting, but our vendors need to sharpen up and following the law. 

My personal diabetes plan:

1.  I have a dietician who keeps me up-to-date on the latest diets, supplements and excersice news.  If you don't have one, get your doc to recommend one.  It's the smartest move I ever made.  Just make sure he/she is schooled in diabetes.

2.  I follow a simple diet plan and use Splenda as a sweetner.  It's the only sweetner I've found that doesn't have any side effects.

3. I excercise on a six-day plan.  If you don't, do!  Being sedintary (sitting around doing nothing) will shorten your life and you will never get your blood levels to even out.

4.  If you have a weight problem, do the above things and you'll eventually start losing weight that you can keep off.

I can only add to this by saying you need to have a support person, be it a wife/husband, girlfriend/boyfriend or anyone whom you find is sympathetic to your diabetes.  This is easier than it sounds and, if you have the internet (and I assume you do if you're reading this) it is now easier to join many online groups or chat lines.  Just google in 'diabetes' and you'll find more places to go than you can imagine.

One other thing, the Alabama diet will not be condusive to your plan and will certainly shorten your life.

I had a very good diabetes doctor in Michigan and when I moved to Alabama I had a doctor who was an Internest but not well-trained in Diabetes.  About two years ago, I switched Doctors and this time I got one with a Diabetic p.c. on his staff.  In Michigan, I had attended a diabetic class for six weeks and (after talking with my new doc and his p.c.) knew I had come to the right place.  I also had purchased a couple of books on diabetes and its treatment and one especially good book co-authored by a Naturalist and a diabetic MD.  So I started a new plan and it immediately began to work.  I lost thirty pounds and am now losing about two pounds a month until I hit my target weight of 160.

Tomorrow I will reveal my personal plan and my ultimate goal.

It's been a decade since I have been diagnosed diabetic and almost lost my life to a series of diabetic strokes.  My wife took me to an emergency room where the attending doctor told her, 'It's just a matter of time, one more and he'll probably die in here'.  Not a very consolable thing to say to a distraught wife, but I survived his prognosis.

The hardest thing for a new diabetic to do is change his diet and up his exercise level.  I did hardly either until a couple of years ago when my blood levels came back at killer levels. (You'd think one would learn the first time, eh?)  I was nearly fifty pounds overweight and my 'exercise' consisted of rolling around my home office in my wheeled office chair.  It was time for major changes.  And the first change would be my doctor.  Tomorrow you'll learn why.

Nothing about this election excites me.  Maybe I've seen too many of them, voted in too many of them, and been disgusted with most of them.  Nothing is new about this one.  McCain is too old, Obama should be in the pulput and Hillary is spouting the same old Billisms.  About the only thing that caused me to raise an interested eyebrow was when Ron Paul talked about the Fair Tax.

I've been a proponent of the Fair Tax for three or four years now.  To me, it's the only thing that will actually work to get this floundering country out of debt.  The biggest problem is people just don't get it and the ones who should get it simply won't take the time to investigate the facts.  And forget the under forty crowd, most of them are too electronically wired to their ipods and cellphones to get anything, much less read anything intellectually enlightning.

I will, of course, trudge down to the polls and vote as I have for more decades than I care to mention now, but where to aim the dart this year is still up in the air which, all things considered, might just be a good place to aim it.