TOOTH IMPLANT IS A PIECE OF CAKE

When I mention having recently had a tooth implant started, I get sympathetic groans. It surprises me. I found mine a rather pleasant experience.

The initial prepping was holding some mint-flavored, chlorhexidine oral rinse in my mouth for 60 seconds. The worst of that was that I couldn't speak for that full minute, which those in the room appreciated far more than I. I was sterilized around my mouth and face and covered over my neck, chest and arms. I had opted for local anesthesia. Getting general anesthesia at my age does not do good things to one's brain. Numbing my jaw was simple and painless, unless you consider a mosquito bite as excruciatingly painful. We told jokes while waiting for my jaw to numb. Immediately I got an itch beside my nose and went to scratch it but quickly told I must not touch my face. Apparently the nurses are ready with a tissue to take away itches as they are identified, which put a stop to that Murphy's Law.

The two nurses and the doctor were three of the most pleasant people I could possibly have encountered. We told jokes while waiting for my jaw to numb. Then the roots of the last tenant in that spot of my jaw were eased out. I might mention that my oral surgeon used to be a pro-football player. It makes the task of extraction more simple when strong hands are working to release roots broken off at the gum line. Then I got the sound of the saw mill. The hole in my jaw, which was to receive the implant post, was drilled. The excess bone was made into a slurry and packed around the post to anchor it as the bone pieces would begin to knit. Stitches were applied to the pulled gum, covering the hole. Feeling great, I drove home to put ice packs on every 15 minutes. As the Novocaine wore off, I knew something had happened in my mouth but never experienced any significant pain. I liked the cold packs because it was a very hot day but really didn't require them for pain or swelling. Swelling was quite slight.

I continued to follow instructions to use the mouthwash given , twice a day for 30 seconds and an anti-biotic, four times a day. While I had a prescription for a pain killer, it was never needed. One week later the stitches were removed. The pain was no different than when I have stuck my finger with a needle while sewing. I was pronounced as doing very well, healing well, and told to come back for an x-ray in two months.

For any of you who may be facing an implant, have no fear. The worst is the fear itself.

WHAT COULD VICTORY IN IRAQ LOOK LIKE?

While outgoing General Petraeus says he will never declare victory there, John McCain seems to be stuck in an outdated military thinking. This is not a typical war nor has it been run typically. Since 2006, most Americans have agreed that we will never be able to claim victory. In my memory, wars have been fought and when the loser surrenders, victory is declared. To whom should we look for surrender in Iraq? Saddam Hussein is no more (not ever having been a threat to us in the first place), but we have kept fighting. Why? The enemy isn't even in Iraq!

Why is McCain focusing on protecting Sarah Palin. Did anyone treat Hillary delicately? Did she ever describe herself as a pitbull with lipstick? Emphatically, no! Is a hockey mom without lipstick simply a pit bull? Why does McCain rarely mention Iraq and why did the RNC emphasize 9/11 and not the war when the war was conveniently manufactured, having shaken up the populace into a sufficient terror that anything was allowed after...especially by the bully type of American who thought only of punching out anyone to get revenge. Americans walked right into the spider-Cheney's web and we have been eaten alive ever since.

Osama bin Laden threatened he would break the American economy. He can now claim the only clear victory. He has succeeded due to the inability of this Administration to think of consequences. Can the USA claim a victory? Absolutely not. We succeeded in destroying the dictatorship of a country that didn't ask us to rescue them. This impulsive move destroyed almost the whole country. We allowed insurgents into Iraq who were fighting a 'war of terror' but we never really knew who they were nor was a formal war declared by any of them with the customary rules of engagement. There are, actually, rules to war as covered in the Hague Laws and the Geneva Convention though, since this is not a war to our enemy, they are not followed. We, on the other hand, consider it a war so we just choose to ignore them.

THE SMEARS MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO BE PROUD

One of the saddest losses for our children in this generation is that there are so few models whom they can comfortably aspire to emulate. Priests, police officers, top business administrators, teachers, politicians, and so many others have toppled off their pedestals. I am assuming much of it is because all the little dirty things make more play for the media, which sells interest in these sordid kinds of actions and is hardly in the best interests of allowing children to admire elders. However, should they be allowed to be in awe of the flawed?. We allow the sports and entertainment industry to create heroes and heroines because they make so much money, not because of the quality of their intellect, integrity or ethics.

The current shameful misinterpretation of the lipstick-on-a-pig statement by Obama, deliberately made into a large issue by people who have not cared to listen to the entire context and meaning, is equally shameful. For once, some of the media has tried to balance this pumped up non-issue, playing clips from the many, many times John McCain has used the expression in a similar context. However, we know that many people will not hear the truth any more than they have heard that Obama is not a Muslim. A close friend told me today that she doesn't like McCain but will vote for him because she cannot bring herself to vote for a black man. I was shocked and admit that lowers my respect for her. It makes it difficult for me to accept her having good judgment when her vote is on such a superficiality. Her argument to support her position: as a black man, he will next have us fighting in Darfur. Such incredulity strains friendships as much as settling contested family wills. In fact, if Gov. Palin thought she was being insulted, why wasn't there a hew and cry when someone remarked that she was another Dick Cheney, without experience?

Though ordinarily a rather patient and calm person, opinions like this expressed with so little information and thought, sorely try in me what Job had and I lack. Not only, I see, does the Republican party continue to smear rather than offer substance and plan for real change, it continues to insult those of us who see through their lack of interest in their country in favor of continuing power, ignoring the Constitution and all the rest of us who do agree with their religious delusions, or believe it is Godly to bring unwanted and uncared for children into the world for them to suffer.

Where have the stories of our youth gone when the good guys always beat the bad guys, when good won over evil, when yo could always tell the evil guys because they wore black and the good guys wore white?. How did evil slip into our society pretending to be with the support of God and believed by so many?

AMERICAN ELECTION THROUGH THE EYES OF THE BBC WORLD

All 22 countries om a BBC World Service poll would prefer Democratic candidate, Barack Obama to be the US president, ahead of his Republican rival, John McCain. Obama was favored by a 4 to 1 margin across the 22,500 people polled.

In 17 of the 22 countries surveyed, the most common view was that America's relations with the rest of the world would improve under a President Obama. Even Al-Jazeera talks to Howard Zinn, author and American historian, social critic and activist about how the Iraqi war damaged attitudes toward the US and why the US "empire" is close to collapse. He believes that any hope, if there is any, lies with the American people.

Rice hosted an Iftar reception for writers and diplomats from Muslin countries. Rice said:

“For hundreds of years, people of all faiths and people of no faith at all have come to the United States to live by these principles, and we have welcomed them. We welcome them still. Every individual who embraces the rights and responsibilities of citizenship makes America more American.

“ Our belief in the universal liberties of every human being is also what leads our country into the world, not to impose our will or our ways on others, certainly not because we believe ourselves to be perfect. We are anything but perfect. But those imperfections lead us to believe that in the pursuit of a more democratic future, we are doing the work that humanity deserves and desires.”

Unfortunately as is with many teenagers, the ideology of the current US administration does not match its behavior. Needless to say, these inconguities do not escape the rest of the world now that it has the Internet and TV. If anyone has taken a cab in a foreign country, the ride will yield the impression of others to the US. For several years, the BBC findings have been consistent with my polling of cab drivers in London, usually from Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and other countries, primarily Muslim.

On Sarah Palin from the web, 9/8/08.

IN MY WORLD

Thinking about what to do to relax, Venus spoke all the verbal commands necessary to make the house ready for the morning, set the security, and finish all the tasks a young mother has before she settles for the night. Her mate was out of town for the night, thus she was left to amuse herself. She decided to watch a movie in bed. Softly speaking, "Movie menu" a chip dropped into the 'in' cup. Inserting the chip into the slot just above her left ear, she ran down the categories. She named a pleasant, romantic comedy. Immediately the menu chip slipped out of the slot and was replaced with the movie chip. Next she hit the start pressure point above her left ear and leaned back to relax and watch the movie in her head.

Just as she was introduced to the hero and heroine, her youngest son, an active four year old, nicknamed Flip, touched her. She touched another spot near the slot, pausing the movie and turned for his question. Mom, when you were a little girl, what did Pharma give you to sleep? She wondered how Flip could understand that Pharma didn't exist in every home to give meals, chemical balancers, weight managers, calmers, and lots of other goodies. He didn't understand that people didn't even have slots in their heads for chips. It was incomprehensible to Flip when he learned they once played games manually. How could she tell this little boy that people had to lie in bed until they fell asleep by themselves.

Flip cuddled into her lap. She put a chip in his slot, touched his 'on' point and played a historical Sesame Street Chip. In only a few minutes, just as her own movie was getting interesting, he was clearly sound asleep. She called the Kiddy Kaddy that rolled up immediately, lifted his little body and rolled off to tuck him into his bed, as she was finally left alone to finish her movie.

Feeling her body totally relaxed, unmoving, the movie chip ejected. She had fallen into a deep sleep. She missed the warmth of her husband's body in the bed and reached out for him just as the alarm of lively wake-up music was heard. What a pleasant dream I had, she thought, as she rose to get ready to take Flip to Nursery School so she could get on to work. Completely rested as one can only be when the brain pampers the body for the night, she came back to the 21st C, grimly fighting her way through traffic, watching faces more grim than her own as she, too, faced the work of the middle class, wondering if her job would last, trying to figure out how she would make the family income stretch to give them a healthy diet, good medical care, clothes on their back, and all the other necessities they could no longer afford. She thought about a machine that could do it all and, suddenly, she had a name for it. She would call it Pharma. Henceforth, whenever she became overwhelmed and too tired to struggle through the day, she thought about her home, known as the Dell, and dreamed of having a Pharma in the Dell.
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MATURITY: MAKING ALL PARTS OF SELF CONGRUENT

If a child's world is laden with violence, both witnessed and directly experienced; if there is inadequate nutrition and emotional nurturing; if the child's world is totally unpredictable as are the people in it; if the child is unable to read social and facial cues (eg. Asperger's, schizophrenia, and other conditions); if the child has never had to face frustration tolerance or amuse itself; if a child is never taught to take care of any of its own needs; if the child has witnessed murder of a parent or other extraordinary trauma, to name only a few factors, their mental, social and emotional development will be compromised.

Treating adults becomes complicated. If it is truly PTSD that keeps an adult unable to control feelings and behavior, brain changes have occurred that prevent the normal talk therapy, insight oriented or cognitive-behavioral, from being effective easily, if at all. Otherwise, trying to help a patient make their child-part (not really understood as it happened) and adult-part (now seen through more mature eyes, hopefully) merge, the goal of whatever therapy is used.

However, when the child and the adult stay as two separate entities with no hope of joining, the mental and emotional tug-of-war the person experiences is painful to them as well as others forced, helplessly, to view it. It is truly like talking to two people in the same body. Even knowing what is best, this person gives in to that which is tempting and easy to do, while denying consequences, only to be hit with excruciating guilt and disappointment to self while feeding their injured ego with more loss of self-esteem.

Longing and desire become obsessional. Getting the voices and directives out of one's head is difficult, if not impossible. Many who experience this want to run from it, mistakenly assuming the triggers are outside self. Obsessiveness follows you wherever you go because, like so many other things, it lives in your head.

Many people continue to assume that just telling people what they should do or say is enough. If they don't follow that 'good' advice, forget them. Life just is not that simple, nor are people, least of all people who have been compromised by not having the good luck to be genetically strong, raised with love and nurture, and exposed to those things that precipitate growth instead of, simply, pain.

If only more people could understand condition and respond with empathy and patience, how much better our human world would be. Many people seem to care more for animals than humans because they feel an unconditional love from their pets. All animals are not as loving to humans. Even animals who have been rescued from traumatic lives often can not be rehabilitated to give up their fears and unacceptable behaviors.

Another side effect of this war is that we are going to see a generation of traumatized children from the middle East who will have hardened their emotions with denial and projected hate to the supposed perpetrators of their misery. We will have hundreds of service people return with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) unable to sleep without recurring nightmares and fearful of life as they no longer know it. One can only sadly wonder how many people cannot easily be fixed by therapy, prayer, or 'good advice'.

WHY DO POOR PEOPLE VOTE FOR McCAIN?

The factors that persuade the poor and middle class in America who vote for McCain puzzles me. Their religious-faith influence is, without doubt, a major factor. One has only to drive through the red states to know their radio offerings are extremely limited to Republic politics and religious lectures. McCain is telling blacks, and others, who do not normally vote Republican, that he will not forget them. If any believe him, will they not question why he is finally noting their existence? These are not the people who have received tax cuts, they struggle to keep a roof over their heads and buy the bare necessities, not doing well with that in the current economy. I shudder and get infuriated when I read sites like BLOGS FOR VICTO(R)Y. The poor often cannot afford newspapers or have the time to read them. They listen to the radio which gets piped into public places. I even heard, two years ago, the religious right on radio at Logan Airport in Boston, with horror as my visceral response.

The very poor do not own stocks or read about current economic trends with involvement or understanding. they don't travel or deal with foreign currency to realize how low the dollar has sunk. They do not understand medicine, other than what a doctor (if they can afford to see one) tells them, "Eat balanced meals, get plenty of sleep, stay stress free, don't smoke or drink alcohol.....". These are people who may not even have enough time with a doctor to hear that message. They rarely have medical insurance unless they are 'fortunate' enough to be disabled, then get Medicaid. The definition of 'fortunate' in that case has to be qualified.

The poor rarely understand the significance of the destructive health behaviors to which they adhere because generations of their family lived that way, though most have died young.

Most of the poor have learned that you can only tighten your belt so far before your navel touches your spine. To make a dollar go further for food they tend to eat more starches, pastas, beans and potatoes, than meat. They gain a puffy weight which gives the appearance of overeating.

Do they question what he can possibly suggest now, that he hasn't brought up in the past eight years, and if so, why not? Or, do they just get caught up in the mob mentality of the RNC Convention and believe the lies they are told in a sort of mass hypnosis and hysteria. Will people learn that only anyone can be President if they work hard enough, are intellectually gifted enough, and prepare themselves for the job?