The World As I Know It

By the time I retired in February, I had been an RN for more than 25 years. Along the way, I earned my BSN and MSN. I had planned on retiring on January 1st, but after the election in November of 2024, I cancelled my retirement plans indefinitely. I thought I could keep going for another year or two, or until we decided it was time to get the fuck out of Trump's America. I thought I could do it, but...I just couldn't. Between hospital administration pretending everything was just peachy, the declining quality of nursing care coming from the floors and ICU's to our unit for procedures and, in the backgound of it all...the drive for revenue. From my end, this came in the form of tests...expensive and often inappropriate tests...being ordered by ED physicians. Too often, those tests were ordered in the total absence of any documentation justifying the order. There were no labs...no EKG's...no progress note documenting the rationale for the exam. And I worked for a large,...

With all the biblical literalist, or at least those claiming to be so, I have a question for them. If the Bible tells you that you should kill someone, would you...really? There are many such instance in the Bible, but let's get specific with Deuteronomy 13:6-11, which states... 6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; 7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; 8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: 9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people...

It can be said, with more than a little justification, that "Christian" nationalism is nothing more than white nationalism in Bible drag. But the issue is more complex than that, and starkly reveals exactly why the Founders erected a wall between church and state. While the term has been in use since the 1800's, it took on new significane in 2015 with the rise of Donald Trump, and the enthusiastic support of that rise by self-styled evangelical "Christians". I use "Christians" parenthetically as I find that these "Christians" pay little more than lip-service to the teachings of Christ. Their support for Trump is rooted in the mistaken assumption that...despite decades of debauchery and depravity...he somehow shares their values. Which leads me to question exactly what their values are. To support their claims that America is a Christian nation founded, not upon the historical records and writings of the Founders regarding the religiousity...

As a veteran, I am...in equal measure...dismayed and disgusted by the efforts of Donald Trump to subvert the Constitution and the rule of law since day one of his second term in office. In fact the only campaign promise he seems intent on keeping is to become a dictator. The silence of the GOP in regards to this utter lawlessness on Trump's part, is deafening. And it can only be construed as complicity in Trump's efforts to assume dictatorial powers. 47 years ago, my oath of enlistment in the US Navy required that I "support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic". It was not to the President or a political party, but to the Constitution...the bedrock of the Republic. Donald Trump is just such an enemy, and your oath of office...sirs...demands the same loyalty. Loyalty to the Constitution...not the dictator wannabe posing as President nor to the Republican Party which gives him such slavishly servile obedience. Do you job gentleme...

It was late in March when got the call at about 3:15 AM. It was a call we'd been expecting for over a week. The night nurse called to let us know that Mom was actively dying and the hospice nurse was with her. Mom had been decling before we got her moved to an assisted living facility back in August and the move only accelerated her cognitive decline. She tried to maintain some semblance of reason, but as time passed, those efforts simply vanished under the rising tide of her dementia. In January, it became necessary to move her to the Alzheimer's unit for continuous care. She was a force of nature, with a short temper and no tolerance for fools. She made use of Dad's GI Bill benefits and got her ADN in 1977, and worked as a Med/Surg RN until 1992, retiring a couple years after Dad died. She had frieds she traveled with...to Italy, Mexico and Central America, The Carribean. But,the years of pounding the floors as an RN had taken their toll. Arthritic pain to her legs, k...