Smoke and Mirrors

I don't know how many thousands of times that I have made this statement: “only the blind understand blindness.” When I came back from the war (I am a totally blind, 100% disabled, service-connected, medical officer veteran of the Korean conflict), God was good enough to lend me enough vision in one eye to drive, to travel, to practice for awhile. After I had to give it all up, I am convinced that He wanted me to see the world. I was stupid enough to believe that others would be interested in my travels through every continent (8 round-the-world trips, passport stamped in 157 countries). I have found over the years, that very few people are interested in anything except themselves, certainly not interested in my travels around the world...not even members of my own family.

One time I asked one my drivers, “have you ever heard members of my family speak of my blindness, my courage in continuing to fight the battles of life, buying and selling on the stock market, so that even in my condition, I was a millionaire by the time I was 40 years of age.” He said, “they never talk about anything of any importance, not even your many activities for God.”

At least for the benefit of my two very fine grandsons, I am leaving a record of my travels, and experiences in business and God's work. I wish I could remember and relate every anecdotal experience, especially those pertaining to my interest in healthcare around the world. Many things, of course, were described to me by my “seeing eye” driver or guide. I will never forget the first African hospital I saw, where the patients were laying on mats, their families outside in little clumps, cooking and then caring for them.

I was in a hospital in Botswana, one of the larger hospitals in the country. In the large nursery, newborn and sick babies were in small cribs, naked, laying in their own excrement, flies everywhere. I said to the woman who was supposedly in charge, “why don't you put diapers on these children, clean them up? There is no way they are going to survive in this filth.” She said, “we are accustomed to very few surviving, if I diaper a child, I spend all my time changing diapers. Doctor, you are not in a world of make-believe. You are now seeing the realism of survival.”

Blind, old, still living alone and taking care of myself. I often wake up at night and weep about things that are going on in this world, to which I was exposed, to which God only wants me to pray, things about which the average person has no concept. Of course, there is much misery going on around me here in this town, even in the wealthiest country in the world.

I have four radios next to my bed, they stay on all the time I am in the bed, including a short-wave radio and I keep up with news around the world. I have been particularly interested in the so-called “kicking the can”, losing our AAA credit rating, bankruptcy fiasco, going on with the crooks in Washington. Because of scare tactics, state-controlled news media, another $2 trillion for Obama to “piss away”, you taxpayers are paying your taxes to rebuild mosques in Egypt, and finance a new public relations campaign to build up Obama in Israel.

Senator Coburn, M.D. like some others in Washington who actually have morals and intelligence has identified more than $3 billion in mismanagement at the National Science Foundation. I can't list everything, but such foolishness as testing sick shrimp's metabolism via a treadmill, or Jello wrestling in the Antarctic.

I was born in poverty, and only by the grace of God, hard-working parents, my God-given mental ability and desire to succeed by both working and studying, was I able to accomplish what very few have done. I take no credit for anything, all credit goes to our blessed Lord, but I remember that when I graduated $10,000/yr was a large salary for an emergency room doctor. There is no reason for me to lie about anything, because God expects truth. I was paid $2 to examine a welfare patient and the paper work for this examination would choke a large horse.

This week, we were told that a Florida man pleaded guilty to participating in two separate fraud schemes that led to the submission of more than $200 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare. In Detroit, Federal prosecutors have charged more than two dozen people, including twelve pharmacists and four physicians, with participating in a scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid of nearly $60 million in fraudulent prescriptions. It seems that bureaucrats, federal, state, and local, have a xenophobia, so afraid to investigate fellow human beings. It goes on everywhere in government...SEC, FDA, etc. Reportedly, $9 billion just disappeared, no trace, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the military, more mercenaries (contract labor), builders, fighters, etc. are used in the military now than uniformed service people.

There was a time when the military veteran was an honored member of the community, when a decorated veteran entered a room, people would stand, when a speaker was introduced, he was presented as a Christian which was a word of honor. A Godless news media, such as Rachael Maddow and Chris Matthews (a flaming gay liberal while a student at Chapel Hill), have degraded the word “Christian”. A complacent, arrogant citizenry knows nothing of veterans or military service. Always on special holidays, I wear my veteran's cap with all the insignias and rank of my service. One young boy said to his mother, “look at that old man with the funny hat.” Thank God all are not so ignorant, scout units in this town where I live always put flags on the graves of fallen veterans.

The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. (Psalm 24:1) Is America's destiny to go the way of Russia and China? We have already gone the way of Sodom and Gomorrah. There were 28 churches in Vladivostok before Communism, they were all destroyed. Before 1900, Russian women had an average of seven children; today, Russian women, like Chinese women, abort almost every baby, the average is now less than one. The few babies that survive in Russia are found on the street. When I was in the Balkins, mothers were paid to have babies, there had been so many abortions under Communism. In Russia, the death rate is exceeding the birth rate, women are paid $10,000 to have a second child. God keeps perfect records, the 53 million abortions in America since 1973...the abomination of same-sex marriage, the abomination of Obama. Every Democrat, every person who has cast his lot with Obama and his ilk will pay a price. It is all not just smoke and mirrors. The eyes of God penetrate the haze.