Straight Talk

Straight Talk

"The democracy will cease to exist will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

- Thomas Jefferson.

            This writer is a totally blind, 100% disabled, service connected, medical officer, veteran of the Korean War era.  I have been totally blind for most of life, now age 84.  One person accused me of being a victim, I am more a victim of the despair brought on by the complete unconcern of my fellow man than anything else.  If I have learned nothing else in my many years of disability it is that most people care only for themselves.  I have found those who care the least - family, fair weather friends, associates, even those who claim the name of Christ, disparage me the most. 

            Most of those around us just go through the motions.  It is like this perpetual-continual (have a good day) when they could care less about what kind of day you may have.  God knows what he is doing when he causes or allows blindness, cancer, or anything else.  The greatest blessings of my life have come to me because of blindness.  Because, I have had a relationship with my Creator which I would probably never have had otherwise.  But, I must admit, I have had a hard time understanding the minds of those who should care.  It makes no difference how generous or genuine to your own family, your own Christian-church associates, your neighbors, your tenants, even your employees -- whatever I do is never enough.  Never, not once, has my only child or my only two grandsons, ever given me one gift at any holiday, birthday or when on a visit (usually only once a year)... NOT EVEN ONE COOKIE even though they know how much I love sweets.  Most people, over the years, since I have gotten very few things from anyone... have the mantra - what can we give someone who has everything, needs nothing?  What can you give God who has everything and needs nothing from you?  At this late date, it is time many of us consider many things. 

            This writer, as I have already said, a blind veteran, received treatment at many hospitals (the longest time and best treatment, Massachusetts General in Boston).  I was at the veterans hospital in Durham, right across the street, Duke University Eye Center.  The VA put me there because they had better specialists to care for me.  I was in the corner room on the second floor.  This was during the time of the Vietnam era war, protesters from UNCH (where I graduated), Duke and other schools in the area were protesting the war around the VA hospital.  A black nurse came into my room, told me how much she hated veterans and spat in my face.  The VA, Duke, nor Dr. Anderson who was treating me did anything about this incident even though they were informed.  Those who go to VA facilities can understand what I speak about when I say there is no agency or administration as inept at the Veterans Administration.  They are just going through the motions.  Just this week, my driver took me to a VA facility, the haphazard attitude of the employees was beyond description.  And, it does no good whatsoever to report bad attitudes, bad care or inept management.  Even our NC senator, Richard Burr, ranking member of the Veteran's committee, even the Blind Veterans Association, even the ranking member of the House Veteran's committee, Myke McIntrye, from this area or Walter Jones, also from this area, have any empathy for veterans. 

            There is a big difference between walk and talk.  We hear talk about government waste.  Government healthcare... There will never be a better example of the lackadaisical attitude than that which I have already expressed in a blog I have titled "National Self Immolation - 1603" found in my blog dated December 19, 2013. 

            In this blog, I described, in detail and have hundreds of pictures to support every statement (by the way, I have never received any requests from a government-agency about pictures or information, even though I wrote many letters).  Fourteen rooms, one total floor in one of my buildings, was rented to an organization called Circle of Courage Ultimate Support Network.  Of course the rental-lease was handled by a realtor, but the chieftain of the group told me that her patients/clients were all Medicaid patients.  In other words, the government spent millions of dollars sending mentally sick people to this group and we found out, after much investigation, those there to treat these mental patients, dispensing God only knows what drugs, did not have a license to practice anything.  Of course, the taxpayers were cheated, the owner of the building was cheated because he didn't receive his rent, the NC Department of Labor was cheated because they did not get their taxes (they told me $150,000), but I think the MOST CHEATED were the patients who were there because they needed help and thought they were getting help.  I remember so well, after they had abandoned their office, turned off electricity, cut off the phone, left all of their records in the office, two black people banging on the door yelling they needed their drugs.

            My assistants described the situation to me and made photographs.  Read to me from some of the records scattered around on the floors the following examples:  (A)  Patient DJ, age 14, diagnosis: "Oppositional Defiant Disorder - description: behavior such as back talking, suspended from school, etc."  (B)  Patient JG, age 8, diagnosis:  "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - history of physical abuse since the age of 3, having outbursts of anger and difficulty focusing."   On one sheet of paper found on the floor along with thousands of records, an evaluation of the services.  On this piece of paper, the following five items were found in default:

            1-Improper document

            2-Notes missing on dates of treatment

            3-Patient Care Plan not in file or completed correctly

            4-Signatures with credentials of clinician missing

            5-Incidents reports not reported in a timely manner to IRIS (NC Incident Response Improvement System)

            This writer, owner of this building, always went into the reception area to pick up his rent check.  I have all of the e-mails, telephone calls about the delinquent rents.  The daughter of the director worked in the office and handled this (she worked in an office behind the sliding glass window, which all of you have seen in such offices.).  Always, the excuse for late rent and later for no rent or worthless checks, the government has not paid us.  I said, "Surely as much money as the government has!?"  She said, "And, we get all we can.  This is the reason we have two hands."

            Just a fraction of the American population have died in war.  A larger percentage wounded in war.  Those who have given their all, our hard working, God fearing, tax paying ancestors, would never believe what has happened to our world.

Black Death

Black Death

The Black Death 1347-1351 wiped out half the population of Europe and over one hundred million of the world‘s population. Scholars question and debate much of the details of the Plague but it is believed to have started through the fleas of rats. It led to the morbidity of the most innocent of the population including the poorest and contributed to the ruin of many religions including decimation of the Catholic Church. There have been recurrences of this Plague in other places in Europe and, indeed, in the world such as in Spain and Italy. Much later America was affected by the Plague mostly in San Francisco where there was much death and rats which could be seen running down ropes of ships being tied in the port facility were a scourge on the city. It was a horrible form of death and like all pandemics tested the social fabric of health and commerce.

Europe again, is in a state of despair mostly due to their own inattention to immigration and border control by an influx of Muslims, mostly African, who risk life trying to find a better existence in European countries. Most, like refugees from Cuba, are trying to get to America on makeshift floating devices or refugees from Mexico and other Latin American countries trying to get to America through tunnels, over or under fences, the exploitation of the human psyche and the determination for finding a better life, has led to untold hardship and death.. Just last week, a ship carrying many Africans sank. A container carrying many was discovered with most of them dead. The risk involved in trying to find a better life here on this earth can be compared to the risk of eternal damnation for the unrepentant soul.

Much of Europe’s trouble is self-imposed because of the desire of cheap labor from the Muslim countries of Turkey and those in North Africa. Instead of going back home, they stay. One of the largest mosques in the world is now located in Cologne, Germany. The Muslims’ have many babies and they do not abort their babies. Among Westerners, more caskets are manufactured than cradles. Women in Western Europe have stopped having children, so the Muslims have rapidly taken over.

So many Africans have died trying to cross at Gibraltar that there is little burial ground for the dead. Almost the same situation has happened in the Canary Islands, off the Coast of Africa. With all the problems of colonialism, at least the colonial powers, England, France, Germany, Portugal employed natives in their own native country and introduce housing, streets, social and commercial systems which improves their living standards. I will not go into the sociology of White-owned Black rule or Black-owned Black rule but using South Africa, the wealthiest African nation as an example, matters have not improved, only deteriorated with Black rule. More blacks are unemployed in Africa now then before Mandela. Living conditions of blacks are worse now then before Mandela.

The African country of Somalia is without government so terrible that the military from other African countries, who had tried to give some relief, have withdrawn. I remember my absolute consternation when in the Sudan and Ethiopia as I saw the tragedy’s already existing there (nothing compares to present day Darfur) and one of the Sudanese officials saying to me, “ You must go back to your country and try to get us some help. This is a place of complete decimation.”

Of course, as always, in every trip around the world, some reporter was anxious to interview me about the trip. How often, do you find a blind man traveling the world able to report on conditions? But, as always, until my series of commentaries on my travels, reporters just like to romanticize and talk about the insignificant. Such as my crossing one river in Nigeria on an ancient rope bridge. Even my description of the peace corps worker, who I met , along with a British ambassador, who had escaped Charles Taylor’s Liberia with the machete deaths was of no interest.

I described in detail my escape from Kigali in Rwanda where the genocide had just begun ( 1 million Tutsi were killed by the Hutu’s), where even the United Nations representatives were expelled from the country, and one accompanied me to the airport where we had to fight our way through gangs of young black “head hunters” to get into the airport where we were kept in the superintendents office with what dire police protection was available. Facilities at the airport, the only one in the country, was behind barbed fenced, the taxi drivers who drove to the airport in a caravan for protection, drove right up to the gate where they formed a gauntlet of protection, as much as possible, for us to get inside.

To this day, just as fresh in my mind as the day it happened, I remember my camera bag hanging around my neck, my white cane and 2 suitcases, being swung side to side trying to protect myself along with the drivers and my guide and the UN officials as we escaped Rwanda into the airport, eventually on the last plane out. I have heard the hatred in the voices of these black people. I know something of the black death and only in the “echo chambers” of hell itself will one hear the cries of the women and children who have fallen victim to the desperation and desolation of the black continent.

Books have been written on the genocide in Liberia, the hell of a 27 year war in Angola, the horror stories of Somalia, the beheading of non-Muslims and the stoning of Muslims in Nigeria. Just this week, photos were shown of a 17 year old girl held down by adults receiving 39 lashes, for sexual activity against Muslim law.

The worlds greatest navy seemingly cannot detect or prevent the hijacking of its flagged ships, but untrained pirates operating from failed boats out of the harbors of a failed country. Have we become so “drugged” that we do not have the mental ability to comprehend what is happening, not only in our own country, but around the world. It does not take a disease such as bubonic plague, the black plague or malaria (from rats and mosquitoes), or starvation. ( at the Nigerian airport, the British ambassador said to me, “You stupid Americans send food, why not metal garbage cans for these people to defend their food from rats.”). When will a world of wealth recognize the cries of babies and small children or their desperate mothers in these countries facing black death.

YOUR CHILDREN ARE ALWAYS YOUR CHILDREN

In your eye’s the child
never ends,
nor should it
Oh the limbs grow,
the body matures to adulthood
But in your eye’s and heart
the child remains
The laughter though a deeper tone
Still holds that
joyous golden ring
of Christmas presents
or a birthday game
The hair now full and Silky
Still holds the urge
to touch and stroke
The smile though older
still makes the heart leap
The body may be
tall and lithe and grown
But in your eyes the outline
of the child is still seen
Though they are grown and flown
Never does a day pass
without the same worry
how are they, where are they
though they may be grown
In your eyes the child never ends nor should it

Bill Mitton