Just too long

Am I the only one that thinks According to Jim has definitely gone on too long? I only watch the show because there isn't that many really good comedies on television nowadays and I enjoy watching sitcoms in order to add a little bit more levity to my life. However I cut it, According to Jim is definitely in the last throes and probably should have been cut last year.

It's a shame that good quality shows have been cut dry while this, once moderately humorous, show has been left to wither up like a California raisin left in the sun too long. The writers and producers of the show are blinded to the fact that this show has had every ounce of comedy wrung out of it during the last several years. It's too bad they didn't let it end last year while it was still funny.

Have I been wrong about shows before? Yes, I was way off base when I wrote a review about Rules of Engagement. While I still think the first episode was a complete waste of time, the producers and writers worked diligently to resurrect the show and now it has a certain cute quality that has me coming back for more. I, however, don't think I am off base when it comes to According to Jim.

Just barely back

I know I haven't been posting in quite some time, but I have been doing some stuff on my other blog and I just haven't felt like updating this one lately. I am, however, going to start blogging here for a while. I'm taking a break on my other one and I'm going to try to use this one to chronicle things that are happening to me daily.


I read the following interesting article today.

It was originally printed in the USA Today through the AP.



Lawsuit: VA has failed to prevent suicides

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs isn't doing enough to prevent suicide and provide adequate medical care for Americans who have served in the armed forces, a class-action lawsuit that goes to trial this week charges.
The lawsuit, filed in July by two non-profit groups representing military veterans, accuses the agency of inadequately addressing a "rising tide" of mental health problems, especially post-traumatic stress disorder.

But government lawyers say the VA has been devoting more resources to mental health and making suicide prevention a top priority. They also argue that the courts don't have the authority to tell the department how it should operate.

The trial is set to begin Monday in a San Francisco federal court.

An average of 18 military veterans kill themselves each day, and five of them are under VA care when they commit suicide, according to a December e-mail between top VA officials that was filed as part of the federal lawsuit.

"That failure to provide care is manifesting itself in an epidemic of suicides," the veterans groups wrote in court papers filed Thursday.

A study released this week by the RAND Corp. estimates that 300,000 U.S. troops — about 20% of those deployed — are suffering from depression or post-traumatic stress from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We find that the VA has simply not devoted enough resources," said Gordon Erspamer, the lawyer representing the veterans groups. "They don't have enough psychiatrists."

The lawsuit also alleges that the VA takes too long to pay disability claims and that its internal appellate process unconstitutionally denies veterans their right to take their complaints to court.

The groups are asking U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, a World War II U.S. Army veteran, to order the VA to drastically overhaul its system. Conti is hearing the trial without a jury.

"What I would like to see from the VA is that they actually treat patients with respect," said Bob Handy, head of the Veterans United for Truth, one of the groups suing the agency.

Handy, 76, who retired from the Navy in 1970, said he founded the veterans group in 2004 after hearing myriad complaints from veterans about their treatment at the VA when he was a member of the Veterans Caucus of the state Democratic Party. The department acknowledges in court papers that it takes on average about 180 days to decide whether to approve a disability claim.

"I would just like to see the VA do the honorable thing," said Handy, who is expected to testify during the week-long trial.

Justice Department spokeswoman Carrie Nelson declined comment Friday.

But government lawyers have filed court papers arguing that the courts have no authority to tell the VA how to operate and no business wading into the everyday management of a sprawling medical network that includes 153 medical centers nationwide.

The veterans are asking the judge "to administer the programs of the second largest Cabinet-level agency, a task for which Congress and the executive branch are better suited," government lawyers wrote in court papers.

If the judge ordered an overhaul, he would be responsible for such things as employees workloads, hours of operations, facility locations, the number of medical professionals employed, and "even the decision whether to offer individual or group therapy to patients with" post-traumatic stress, the papers said.

The VA also said it is besieged with an unprecedented number of claims, which have grown from 675,000 in 2001 to 838,000 in 2007. The rise is prompted not from the current war, but from veterans growing older, government lawyers said.

"The largest component of these new claims is the aging veteran population of the Vietnam and Cold War eras," the government filing stated. "As they age, older veterans may lose employment-related health care, prompting them to seek VA benefits for the first time."

Government lawyers in their filings defended its average claims processing time as "reasonable," given that it has to prove the veterans disability was incurred during service time.

They also noted the VA will spend $3.8 billion for fiscal year 2008 on mental health and announced a policy in June that requires all medical centers to have mental health staff available all the time to provide urgent care. They said that "suicide prevention is a singular priority for the VA."

The VA "has hired over 3,700 new mental health professionals in the last two and a half years, bringing the total number of mental health professionals within VA to just under 17,000. This hiring effort continues," they said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Great viedo

I really enjoyed this viedo.

It's been forever

I know I haven't been on here very much, but I am planning on continuing with my blogging once my Frau returns to Germany in a few weeks. Normal I would have time to blog while she is here, but I have been having some difficulties with my bowels. Tomorrow I'll end up having to call in to see if I can get an appointment to see the doctor about this situation.

Back

I haven't been doing any blogging in quite a while as you can plainly see. This is largely because I have not felt my very best over the last couple of months. Right after I developed two lesions on my chest in June I started having difficulties with my bowels once again. This whole thing started right after I began taking an antibiotic to fight what the doctor thought was a bacterial infection on my chest. The lesions healed relatively quickly, although my bowels which were affected tremendously by the antibiotic have not rebounded to their normal functional state.
It has been a couple of years since I have experienced these types of problems, and the knowledge I was able to overcome this once before doesn't seem to be helping me get over this sensation that I may have to live with this discomfort for quite a while. I am trying a multitude of different techniques in order to get myself right again, and even though I am getting a little better day by day, I am still having troubles more often than I would like.
Well, I am going to be trying to get back to blogging more often and start just writing down what I am feeling on that particular day. My other blog has been neglected as well, but at least I have been able to put a few things up every now and then on that site. It has been so difficult to concentrate on much of anything, let alone writing when I feel like trash so often. And on those days when I do feel pretty well, I tried to get things done which make me feel even better. My to do list continues to grow and I just don't even have the energy sometimes to tackle some of the more easily rectified things on that list, but I do know I will get to it eventually.
I have been selected to be an advocate for all spinal cord patients at the Tampa VA. Tomorrow is my initial meeting and I cannot wait to dive in headfirst so that I can get my mind wrapped around something other than my woes. I used to be so busy when I lived in my other neighborhood that I didn't have time to concentrate on not being so comfortable much of the time, but right now it is all I am focused on. I am, however, really optimistic that I will be able to get my bowels in order once again and then perhaps my energy levels will return to the same level they were in early June.
I'm not going to do any corrections on this unless I see an obvious error in my quick perusal.

Back shortly

Unfortunately I'm just about ready to go into the hospital. It is nothing serious, just a routine procedure, however, I will be gone for about two weeks. Since I won't have access to the Internet or my voice-activated software, I don't anticipate doing any blogging. It's going to be a big change for me, but hopefully I'll make it through unscathed. At least I'll be able to get some reading done next week.

I'll be in bed until Monday. That is a pain.

One of these days

I am so glad that I am not under time crunch. I had quite a bit on my plate today and one of the very last things I was going to work on was that entry I have working on for quite some time. It's nothing special, but I wanted to dictate it once again with many of the ideas I have come up with in the last few days.
I thought it would help my voice profile (all of the work I have done with my voice-activated software) since I had switched microphones within the last few weeks. It also seems to be easier every now and then if I dictate a complete paragraph or a document instead of trying to take a prepared document and then edit it. The only time that seems to work is when I do it on paper was somebody else writing down my ideas.
I haven't been able to work on the entry over the last couple days because the microphone has been shifting positions and now I have figured out how to position it correctly. Before that I just didn't feel like it. Today I thought there was nothing going to stop me from working on this thing and I guess I was wrong. Late this evening my voice software started to act up. I spent an hour and a half trying to rectify the problem and ended up doing a system restore, only to have it completely eradicate my voice profile (which is very time-consuming to restore). Thankfully I read that I could undo any system restore and that is what I did. Now the thing seems to be working correctly, but all of the work I have been doing to improve the accuracy over the last three weeks is completely gone. I guess the user file became corrupt and now I am forced to use a backup from June.
I guess the best way to look at this is, at least I have a backup.
I hope this is somewhat legible. I'm going to have to go back in and change a few settings. Once I do that I am going to ride around the block clear my head and try to do something tonight. Maybe with any luck I'll get something done over the next week.
Tomorrow I am going to be gone most of the day doing some much-needed shopping. I probably won't get hardly anything done in the evening, but I can still hold out hope.
Well, I'm going to post this and see how it looks in a few minutes.