Claims And Issues

FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED IS NOT A GOOD HEALTH POLICY.

Hospital Emergency Departments are overwhelmed with patients in 2021.  Patients have been coming since 2020, or maybe it was late 2019, when the coronavirus pandemic began.

          Nurses and doctors stop practicing because there are too many patients for the care. 

          There are not enough hours in the day to treat everyone who needs treatment for Covid infection, let alone to treat everyone who needs treatment for anything else.

          If these things remain unaltered, "untreated" if you will, the patchwork of health care systems in this country will collapse from the sheer weight of so many patients who need care all at once in a pandemic.

          We can change this.  We can treat this.  We need to stop fearing this first, then change it and treat it.  We can, if we choose to.

          Here's to a Happier New Year in 2022!

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

ON CHRISTMAS AND TAKING THE LONG WAY HOME.

Feeling a bit depressed over the end of Christmas?  Me too.  It's natural but not forever.

          Christmas brought out a lot of the worst in people, after all.  Many people were concerned exclusively with their own small piece of the planet.  Reportedly, people kept their seats on public buses despite the fact that pregnant women and older riders were standing.  Other reports told of outright cruelty in a time of undeniable want and incontestable need.  Many people walked right past other people, homeless, starving, and unwashed in the streets, on the sidewalks, and in the train stations so often that it wasn't even news.        

          Christmas also brought out the best in people.  Kindness was everywhere and patience was abundant.   Then the decorations came down.  The lights were turned off and put away until next year.  Plants that were decorations or gifts were dug into the yard, the lucky ones that did not find their way into a garbage can.

          But Christmas itself was not put away until next year.  The ways of living that so many people joyfully experienced in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas need not vanish with the decorations, the lights, and the plants.   Acting with kindness independent of someone "earning" our kindness, and holding back in patience despite a provocation that we would have once convinced ourselves called for "letting someone have it" because they "deserved" it, or because we were "sharing our feelings" and so we felt we had a license to unload on the other, all good things do not have to come to an end on December 26th.  They do not end with Christmas Day.

          Here's to a Happy New Year this year, all year through!  Here's to a Happy New Year with Christmas every month of the coming year!

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

SMALL IS THE POWER OF CHRISTMAS

God came to the world small.  He came in a big way.  The Christ Child was small but the observation has been made about that Child, which is much the same observation that has been made about many a person, thing, or event that at first seems small in our eyes, that He was  mighty.

          We are at our best when we recognize the value of small.  Children, puppies, kittens, a gentle prayer, a budding leaf, a rose.  You think of some small things yourself, and add them to the list.  We all know the value of small even if we sometimes have to stop to think about it.

          That is the power of Christmas.  Small, like a newborn child.  More powerful than all the drones that ever flew, all the border guards that ever rode horseback, all the social media that was ever posted.

          Small is good.  Small is the power of Christmas.

          Merry Christmas!

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

YOU CANNOT BUY CHRISTMAS

Christmas cannot be earned and it cannot be bought.

          Christmas is a gift.  Gifts are given by those that give gifts.  The giver of a gift decides when, and how, and whether they give a gift, not the receiver of the gift.

          A gift is freely given, like Christmas itself.  Otherwise it is not a gift, it is a transaction.  To say again, Christmas cannot be bought.  It is not in the retail inventory.  It is not brought out to a shelf and sold in a shiny box on the 25th of December.

          Nor is Christmas a lay-away plan, where little by little a person puts down money on a product until eventually the purchase price is paid.  Christmas is available to all, without price, at all times.  Christmas is open to everyone to join in, even if a person chooses not to participate until the 24th of December, let's say.  Last-minute joy is still joy. 

          To say it another way, Christmas does not have a two-minute warning.  The Christ child comes whenever the Spirit wills and not just on the 25th of December.  Likewise, the gift of you is welcome any time.

          As Linus said, that is what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

 Merry Christmas!

            

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

COMPASSION BROUGHT THE FIRST CHRISTMAS.

And every Christmas since.

Compassion stirred the dark night into the shining Christmas star that lit the way of shepherds and kings.

          Compassion brought the first Christmas.  Christians believe that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son on Christmas.  We can all believe, and hope that we too can show empathy and compassion, even if the most we can manage is a small part of the word.  For our part, all we have to do, each of us, is be compassionate toward others in our lives.

          The people we meet each day, the others in our lives, are only a small sliver of the unfinished work that is the world's population.  The job we face is not too hard for us to do.  Especially now, when we have so many examples of how compassion is worked out in every age since that first Christmas.

          By showing empathy with others, particularly when we show our compassion to others from whom we do not expect anything in return, we too stir the dark night into the shining Christmas star, a light that can light the ways of the world.

          Merry Christmas!

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

GIVING FOR CHRISTMAS

We have already begun to celebrate Christmas.  The stores were open for buying around Halloween.  Every year they give us more and more days to buy so that we can give.  And we accommodate.

          Four days from today we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.  But as I said, we have already begun to celebrate Christmas.  When Christ was born, God came to earth and gave His only Son to all humanity forever more:  That belief is at the center of Christianity.  That belief should take a central place in our celebration of Christmas, and not for Christians alone should this be central.

          The belief that God gave us all a gift is, again as I already said, central.  Giving to others puts the focus on others, not on our shopping lists.

          Buying gifts has been twisted into a morphed and morbid making of a buck.  It has become about us rather than about others, about how seemingly generous we are, and about what fine gifts we have on our list of purchases rather than about the people who will receive our gifts.

          Buying gifts is also not the only way to give a gift.  As people who have received gifts, we share the experience of receiving gifts which do not come with a price tag:  a child's embrace freely given and unearned, a mother's or father's compassionate understanding of our failings, a husband or a wife or anyone else cutting our meat at dinner time when we cannot and so making it possible for us to eat.

          We have been celebrating Christmas for the merchants for months.  We can show them one better.  We can celebrate Christmas today, and every day, all the days of the year.  Four days from now we honor the Birth of Christ, the greatest gift, a gift of love itself.  We can share that gift today, and every day, all the days of the year.

          Merry Christmas!

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

WHEN SEEING IS not BELIEVING.

When human beings see things, we tend to believe what we see.  That is one reason why eye-witness testimony is so valuable in court.

          Many of the things we see have changed, however.  The things we see now are largely videos produced by someone else, and broadcasts that are made to fit a television screen.

          Videos can be doctored and seemingly, they often are. 

          Broadcasts that are made to fit a television screen necessarily leave anything out that is not photographed by a camera.  This phenomenon is not limited to televisions.  It is familiar to anyone who has taken a picture that could not capture the complete scene of what was being photographed.

          Seeing may not be believing any more.  Or to put it another way, "Seeing is believing?"  Not so much.

          So why do many of us still say it is?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

HERE'S THE OTHER THING. ASK THEM WHY.

When you hear stories that the Russians are simply defending themselves with 175,000 soldiers on the Ukraine border, ask them why.

          You don't have to tell them why this is ridiculous, you know.  They should shoulder their burden of proof and tell you why this is reality, if they can.

          When some people say that they are not getting the COVID-19 vaccines, ask them why.

          You aren't the one to tell people who aren't getting the vaccine why they should.  Not unless it makes you feel good to tell them what they already know.  They already know why they should.  They still think they shouldn't, even though they know why they should.

          So ask them why.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

JUST SAY "PROVE IT."

  IT'S A LOST ART.

Some people get away with saying the most ridiculous things.  Make them prove it.

          Some people say that elections were stolen.  Instead of trying to prove to them that elections were not stolen, make them prove to you that the elections were stolen.

          Other people, maybe many of the same people come to think of it, say that Medicare and many other things they don't like is or are "socialist" or God forbid, "Communist," and that wealthy people will take care of the rest of us anyway.  (Are there any Communists left outside of China and Cuba?  That's probably rhetorical.)

          Just say this instead of trying to debate what is "socialist" and what good if any the wealthy people do:

          Prove it.

          It's a lost art.  It used to be a part of our culture.  Engrained deep within us.  Tell someone who says something to just "prove it."

          Let's bring that back.  Try it the next time you want to reply to one of these people.  Just say:

          Prove it.

          Among other things, you'll feel better about it all.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS: JABS IN PANDEMIC PROFIT-TAKING.

Nondisclosure agreements provide for secrecy.  One party has a secret, and the other party or parties agree to keep that secret.  We have become used to seeing nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, as a part of financial transactions, deviant sexual demands made almost always by men, and settlements.

          Current reporting brings another set of demands for NDAs to our awareness:  Public Citizen just issued a report written by the research director with Public Citizen's Access to Medicines Group based on a review of "Pfizer's COVID-19 business practices," which reveals that among other things Pfizer contracts with sovereign nations responding to the coronavirus pandemic include NDAs that nothing will be said about these contracts with Pfizer "without Pfizer's prior written consent."  The Public Citizen findings were reported on by Adam Taylor in THE WASHINGTON POST online on October 19, 2021.

          Nondisclosure in profit-taking during a pandemic with taxpayer monies paying for the profits.  Keeping secrets seems essential to that business model, and NDAs in the pandemic are apparently as important as the anti-coronavirus drugs themselves.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.