Thanks to Michael Jennings who sent this to me (df)

‘Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team.. They were off to play another type of game. A game called ‘War.’ But it didn’t turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don’t say that to gross you out, I say that because there are people who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old – and it was so hard that the ones who did make it home never even would talk to their families about it.

It was just boys who won the battle of Iwo Jima

(( One thing I learned while on tour with my 8th grade students in DC that is not mentioned here is…that if you look at the statue very closely and count the number of ‘hands’ raising the flag, there are 13. When the man who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply said the 13th hand was the hand of God.))

For some fascinating photos- ones that even this aviation buff has never seen, click here.

Un-winged visitor at the feeder.

It’s the touch of human skin to human skin that makes the difference.

We can throw all of the money we have into healthcare.  Our nation can mortgage itself  to unfathomable depths.  But it is still that human-to-human touch that will determine how we heal the sick and comfort the dying.

Television and radio commercials for prescription medicine tell us to ask for a certain medication.  The pitch takes twenty seconds, and there are forty seconds of warning of what might happen to use if we take it.  I’ve heard from several physicians who say they see patients every day, who ask for prescription medication by name. These new drugs often do no better, or make no significant difference than some of the older medications that are available in cheaper, more generic form.

Some insurance companies are under scrutiny because of wildly increasing premiums.  It gives supporters of the current healthcare proposal ammunition.  And if you have diabetes, or have recently been diagnosed with cancer, or any number of other health problems, and you try to get private healthcare insurance- good luck.

No, a guarantee of healthcare is not in The Constitution Of The United States.  But in a nation where plane loads of relief are sent overseas, and our private citizens raise a billion dollars in donations for earthquake victims, how can we not help our fellow citizens who are at the end of their rope, sick, no money, and no way to be insured?   It’s not a question of constitutionality, but of compassion.

Pain “script clinics” need to be shut down.  Florida has two hundred such clinics( and permits pending for more) where people pay a few hundred dollars for an MRI, a couple of hundred bucks for a doctor to write a prescription for narcotics, and off the “patient” goes with ninety or a hundred-twenty Oxycontin, Lortab, or other pain medication.  That, say,  five hundred dollars gets them sometimes forty bucks for every pill.  Do the math.  Everybody makes money on that misery.  I believe every individual involved in that “pain train” should be locked up, from street dealer to clinic owner.

I think there were a couple of men in the Old Testament who did not die.  But the rest of us are bound to suffer death.  Some of us will mercifully suffer a quick demise.  Others, are bound for a long slide into death.  We have to pay attention to end of life care, to comfort those who have no hope, to make sure everything possible is done for them.  But God help us if we start deciding who lives and who dies.  And for those who don’t want to give up hope, who want to fight to the end, we need to stop whining about its cost, and help them.  I have come about a close as I want to be to death, and I can tell you, it is scary.  Again, I say the touch and kind voice of a human being means all the world in that time.

(Oh, and this side note:  Sometimes you might think someone under heavy medication, maybe in ICU cannot hear or understand.  You might be right.  But from personal experience, I can tell you the medication does not eliminate all of your sense of fear and anxiety, nor does it kill your sense of hearing. )

I can’t tell you what is in President Obama’s healthcare reform bill.  And I would wager my insurance premium for this month that most of our lawmakers have no clue, either.

Now, The President has set a deadline of March 18th for Congress to pass healthcare legislation.  Know why?  Because the artificial deadline has been set in order to get the bill passed before your lawmakers come home for spring recess.  Again, that insurance premium bet is on the line when I wager that our lawmakers will get an earful when they come home to their districts.

In earlier times, I’d start to hammer out a news story on an old Royal 440 typewriter.   Sometimes, about halfway through, I would realize what I had typed was a piece of doo doo, grab the rough pulp paper by the top..and whizz it through the typewriter platen, wad the paper up and toss it into the can.  That new, blank sheet of paper looked so much better than the earlier copy- because I didn’t have to strike over, pencil in, mark out…or even worse, try to write my way out of a hole.

It seems like such a simple thing to do… take a flawed piece of legislation that deals with a seventh of our national economy….stop the political fight over it…and throw it in the can.  Hit the delete button.

Start over.

A clean piece of paper with what the people need, what we can afford, and something all of us can understand.

It’s kind of like the human touch.  Sounds easy and simple, makes sense…but is often forgotten.

When is this ever good news?

I wanted it to snow….really, really snow.

Academia and I have never had a close relationship.  (Note to my children here: Cover my grandchildren’s eyes when you read this part.)

David Earl Foulk - 1st grade

I did not like to go to school.  Now, I loved to read, and learn new things.  But my favorite part of school has always been recess.  Hence, my college degree in Political Science, with a minor in billiards.  Whether it was a dislike of the structure, or one of my psychological twists and turns, I would rather be somewhere else.

So at the sign of the first snowflake, I would pester my mother or father to turn on the radio.   I’d listen carefully to WATE Radio, or WBIR 1240AM, or WNOX, or WIVK.. scanning the radio dial to see if anyone had news that school would close the next day.  I was mentally squeezing the radio like a lemon, hoping the sweet nectar of school closing would come from the speaker.

A half-century ago, the word that school would be closed likely traveled through the same pipeline: the telephone to the newsrooms.  And then from a scribbled note to the announcer, or a typewritten message to the television news anchors…over the airwaves and to your ear.

The first link of that pipeline is essentially the same…from the person speaking for the school system, to the newsroom.  But from that point on, it travels a much different piece of plumbing.

The first link of the pipe is still the same- we put it on the radio as soon as possible.  And that means it has to be done in a clear, easily understandable fashion.  Sometimes it means telling you that some schools will close at a certain time, others later.  Then there is the matter of bus schedules, and high school students who drive, and when they might be released if it starts to snow.  There’s pressure to get it on, but even more pressure to make sure we are correct.

Second link in the pipeline is our text message service, which sends telephone text messages to listeners who subscribe.  And there are third and fourth links now… Twitter and Facebook.  It’s my job to send the text messages to you, and also on Twitter at “foulknews” , and Facebook at “Dave Foulk” .  No matter  the service that carries the information through the pipe to you, the pressure is on to be timely and accurate.

And I’d like to think that somewhere,  a kid is listening to the radio, or watching their computer, or waiting on a text message at the other end of that pipe.

The excitement of a snow day hasn’t changed a bit.

Years of experience and exposure have taught this woman a thing or two about celebrity, personal focus, and the important things in life.   This is a well-written and thoughtful piece from what many would consider an unlikely source.    Read here.

This is one strange looking cloud.  I’d like to hear your ideas after you see it, and read about it here.

A song popped into my head this evening.  It’s from an old band called Buffalo Springfield.  Steven Stills sang it…

…There’s something  happenin’ here.

What it is ain’t exactly clear…..

A fired worker comes back to the job and methodically shoots several  co-workers.

An elementary school teacher blasts his principal and assistant…critically wounding one of them.

A college professor opens fire in a meeting, and kills three colleagues, and critically wounds three more.

A woman drowns one child, and nearly drowns a second, then kills herself while on the line with 9-1-1 dispatcher.

And this afternoon, a man burns down his own house, then takes a small plane on  a one-man suicide mission, crashing into a government building… but not before he posts an on-line “manifesto” of his series of gripes

And this all in the past month, the ones that come to mind with no research into news archives.

It ain’t exactly clear.

There’s a lot of rage in America right now.   Some of it is person-against-person.  Other times, it’s person against anything- everything.

It would be easy to blame the economy.  The recession wiped blank so many of our futures.

Some say our government policy is driving people to the brink.

I have heard other folks place the bloody bodies  at the feet of our permissive society.

At the same time these stories are developing a group of doctors in Canada push for government guidelines for when mercy killing can be legal.  But they don’t call it mercy killing.  It has a more medical sounding name… but accomplishes the same thing: deciding when to kill somebody.

Are all of these stories connected?

Is there a thread that is unraveling in our society that is prompting so many of us to act in such bloody, bizarre, un-natural  ways?

After the September Eleventh attacks, we were all afraid of the terrorist from overseas.

Now, it appears we need to worry about the terrorist who lives next door and is about to blow their stack.

Oh, you say that’s not terrorism?   The people who managed to live through the violence  might argue otherwise.

Terror, is terror, is terror.

Are we turning against ourselves in fits of rage?   I hope more intellectual and influential people can come up with that answer.

The fear of a terrorist from somewhere else is rapidly fading this week into a fear of the terrorist time-bomb maniac who might be working in the next cubicle.

One of the latest things in firefighting tools is a camera.  Many fire departments allow their crews to wear helmet cameras- small “lipstick”  cams to record their efforts.   Far from being a way to re-live the thrill, these cameras are often invaluable aids in reconstructing fire-rescue efforts for training.   Watch the companies from Dover, New Jersey fight this house fire.  A woman in her 80’s perished.  Her two sons got out okay.  And one firefighter is slightly injured in a fall as he bails out from the burning upper floor, where flames have chased him to the window.

Here in the dead of winter…. this video should be a reminder of what fire-ems-rescue-and law enforcement folks do for us every day.

This piece is worth reading:  warning over national debt,  from The Financial Times