Taking the "Care" Out of Health Care

Before I even start this blog, this has NOTHING to do with the Affordable Care Act. If you're hear to gripe about Obama or whatever, please stop reading this and go away.

Our health care system in this country SUCKS! And this time I'm not talking about prices or insurance or any of those atrocities. I'm simply talking about the actual facilities and care (or lack thereof) that's being given to patients out there. Take for example, this story out of California I read this morning:

An assisted living community in Castro Valley, CA called Valley Manor Residential Care closed it's doors on Thursday, Oct. 24th after orders from the California Dept. of Social Services to "protect the health and safety of the clients in care." Sounds noble right? Well, any thoughts of good intentions disappear when you find out THEY LEFT FOURTEEN PEOPLE LOCKED IN THE FACILITY!

14 residents, several who were unable to leave their beds, were left after the staff walked out when they found out the place was closing and they would no longer be paid. Luckily, a cook, a janitor, and a caregiver were the only 3 out of the entire staff to stop and consider the residents and stayed behind WITHOUT PAY because they felt bad for the patients.

The patients were all removed and taken to other facilities and now police are searching for the owners and criminal charges are coming.

Sadly, this isn't an isolated incident. More and more health care facilities are being treated more like Fortune 500 companies and less like places to receive help. Budgets and bottom lines have replaced helping and healing.

Just remember next time you visit the doctor that your well being may not be their first priority... if it's a priority at all.

Can You Really BUY Respect?

I'm not a big fan of the Huffington Post. Never have been. I see it as more of an opinion page than the "news source" many have treated it as over the years and articles like this are exactly why I don't put a lot into what they say.

The article is called "Nine Disliked Celebrities Who Deserve Another Chance" which honestly sounded pretty interesting. Was I wrong about some of these pretentious douches? Did they do great things to the benefit of mankind that outweigh whatever makes them unlikeable? Were they unfairly portrayed in the media?

Nope, they just have money.

Don't get me wrong, the donations and time spent supporting whatever charities they support is a great thing. The problem is, I can only assume after seeing people like Kanye, Kim Kardashian, and Justin Bieber act like spoiled, selfish, conceited children that these acts of kindness are just for show. Yes Jay Leno took a pay cut so his staff wouldn't lose their jobs but that's only after he screwed Conan O'Brien and his staff out of jobs he gave them less than a year before.

There are others like Taylor Swift and Ashton Kutcher who are disliked, not for being a bad person, but for their respective performances who probably have the right intentions and things like this can totally sway my opinion of them. The ones who are just crappy people, however, can't just buy my respect.

Redefining "Crappy Food"

Everyone has been to at least one restaurant where you left saying "The food tasted like s***." Well now, there's a restaurant where the food LOOKS LIKE CRAP... and it's supposed to!

Modern Toilet (not surprisingly) got its start in Taiwan. The concept was born from one of the creators reading comics on the crapper. It began with chocolate ice cream served in toilet shaped bowls but when the response was positive it blossomed into a full blown toilet themed restaurant. Check it out:



These are mostly located in the Philippines but one is now open in Pomona, CA if you want to experience a whole new concept of the #2 Special.

Keep On Truckin

In case you've been living in a cave for the past few weeks, we are in a Government Shutdown. It's been 8 days long so far with no signs of letting up. The short version of the story is that the American Care Act went into effect on Oct. 1st and in an attempt to block it, even though it had already been voted into law, Republicans refused to sign a new budget without provisions to strip funding from the ACA. Democrats and President Obama refuse to budge on the ACA and demand a budget with no provisions to strip the ACA of funding. Now we're basically at a stalemate where even high profile Republicans are asking House majority leader John Boehner to allow for a vote to get a budget passed while he still stands firm that the bill won't pass if it goes to a vote.

But you probably already knew all of that. Well what you may not know, is that the protests are starting to organize. One planned for this weekend is called "Truckers Ride for the Constitution". TRFTC will see large numbers of truck drivers clogging up the beltway in DC throughout this weekend. The plan is to run 3 lanes wide at the posted speed limit of 55 MPH and only allow vehicles through their maze of trucks if they have the events acronym displayed on their vehicle.

Some may see this as a burden to innocent residents of the area and it will be BUT it's also something to get people talking and hopefully open the eyes of those on Capital Hill. The group says their main intention is to ask for "the arrest of everyone in government who has violated their oath of office" which includes Senator Boehner and President Obama.

It's highly doubtful any arrests will be made in Congress but the group did say if police hassle them "we're going to lock the brakes up, we're going to stop right there, we're going to be a three lane roadblock" so if you're planning a trip to DC this weekend... DON'T!

I have a feeling this is just the beginning of many many protests and demonstrations unless this government shutdown comes to an end and even then I'm not sure any faith in government will return.