WAITING IN THE WAITING ROOM (Poem)

They quietly sit there, waiting to be called, except for a young lady
Saying something to her mother, unheard by others,  or is it her
Grandmother, an obese woman on a portable oxygen tank.

They wait for a doctor or for a test or for an outpatient operation to
Find out – What or to cure what?  They wait with vacant eyes to
Find out the news or maybe they know the news.

(I muse.  If you know the news, is it still news?)

Quiet, waiting, looking, mostly staring into space as time passes by.
A few are looking at old magazines.  Some stare at their lap.
But they too will vacantly stare into space.

Every so often, a name is called by a cheerful nurse.
Without joy, someone gets up, perhaps accompanied by a spouse or
Someone else, and walks to a door, passing inside.

Sometimes someone comes out of that door and quietly walks to
The exit, without comment, and none asked for.  Was there
Good news or bad news or will another visit be needed to get news?

For the rest of us, we wait in the waiting room.

 

Written December 2005

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 & THE FINANCIAL COLLAPSE

I realize that there are tens of thousands of people whose lives have been changed to various degrees: loss of a father or mother or brother, etc. It is not only the pain at a missed relative or friend, it can mean selling the house, maybe not going to college, all sorts of things. And it did change our nation in that we have been at war ever since in Afghanistan and Iraq (the big two), but Yemen and other places too in different degrees. In addition to the thousands of Americans and foreigners who died in 9/11 or suffered life changing injuries, there are more thousands who have died or suffered life changing injuries in our subsequent wars in lands far away.

But in my case, and that of millions of others, 9/11 didn't change our lives at all, as nearly as I can tell. I had already been retired for 6 years. It is true that the tech and biotech bubbles burst affected our investing style to a significant extent, and we incurred significant financial loss. I had never gotten involved in corporate bonds before or preferred stocks. But I do not see how these are related to 9/11. The housing boom affected our life in that we sold our home and moved to a lower cost state with some tax advantages just before the housing crash that has been with us since. The low interest rates in effect since the burst of the housing bubble certainly have consumed a lot of time trying to find something relatively safe that has a decent yield. Can we sell our current home and move to a retirement center? I don't know.

If I had to pick something that affected my life in this century, it would be the collapse of our financial industry due to deregulation and lack of regulation of the financial industry by the Bush Administration.* All those weird derivatives and synthetic derivatives left unchecked. It ruined our economy for the rest of my life and maybe forever. Places that have heavy regulation of their financial industry have done rather well such as Texas (a surprise) and Canada. You can deregulate industries like trucking and maybe the airlines. There will be pain, but the entire economy is not at hazard, and, maybe after some years, we come out ahead. The financial industry is different. They can't be left unchecked. As much as 9/11 may have affected America, it is the collapse of the financial industry that has most affected America. For example, Federal revenues are at a 60year low as a percent of GDP.

Where was I when the economy collapsed? I don't know. Perhaps September 15, 2008 was the date. That was when Lehman Brothers declared Chapter 11.

* President Clinton helped by signing repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act.

WHAT IS GOD TRYING TO TELL US?

I have previously written on The Theology of Natural Disasters (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/theology-of-natural-hazards.html). There are those in the evangelical movement who have their own theology and believe that God is trying to tell us something through various natural and man-made disasters. Usually what these people say God is trying to tell us has nothing to do with the disaster. Billy Graham's daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, said that 9/11 occurred because we don't allow God in our schools, government, business and marketplace.* Prominent among those who link disasters to God's message is Pat Robertson, for example, who felt that the Haiti earthquake happened because of their revolt against the French under Napolian.** And somehow Pat Robertson also linked Katrina to the abortion issue.*** John Hagee, on the other hand, linked Katrina to God’s anger over a proposed homosexual parade in New Orleans.****

And that brings us to Michelle Bachmann, a candidate for the Republican nomination for President, on why Hurricane Irene occurred, that it was a warning to Washington to cure the budget deficit.***** I have wondered if she could keep herself under control for the entire nomination period. You better believe that her handlers told her to go back out there and say she was joking. This follows her previous gaff when she signed a document that contained a passage indicating that Black children were better off during slavery. Bachmann said she had not read the entire document. Later the offensive passage was removed.***** Let’s give her a pass on this one, but expect more in coming months. And I sometimes wonder if late on a clear moonlit night, Rick Perry, the evangelical governor of Texas and another candidate for Republican nomination for president, just might wonder if the drought and wildfires in Texas, unbroken by an official three days of prayer, that God is telling him that anthropogenic global warning is real? Naw, it is probably due to Texas having the highest percentage of adults in the nation without health insurance - 27.8%.******


Supporting Information on the above:

Anne Graham Lotz:
"I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. "*

Pat Robertson said:
“[S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you get us free from the prince.” True story. And so the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.

But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle, on the one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.”**

John Hagee
“Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.” “New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God,” Hagee said, because “there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came.”

Machele Backman
"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the
politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to
start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people
are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to
rein in the spending.”*****

The Family Leader
The Family Leader, an Iowa-based conservative activist group, removed a sentence Saturday from the introduction of their “Marriage Vow: A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family” that said: "Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.” *****

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/
07/family-leader-under-fire-over-slavery-comment-in-marriage-defense-pledge/

* http://www.prayerfoundation.org/billy_grahams_daughter.htm
Note: Hmm. I thought the message of 9/11 was that we need to strengthen our defenses against terrorism.
** http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/01/13/77141/robertson-haiti/
Note: The sad thing was that things were just looking up for Haiti. They were beginning to get some industry. The French ruined the crop land growing sugar so agriculture is difficult there. But I agree that Haiti is a very sad country.
***http://mediamatters.org/research/200509130004
**** http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/04/23/22152/hagee-katrina-mccain/
Note: The people most affected by Katrina were the working poor, not the indigent, say, who lived on the top of a hill. I don't know that the working poor have a more sinful lifestyle than any other group, but their problem, of course, was that they were living in a coastal area below sea level. I'm surprised God would make these people suffer because of abortion or a proposed homosexual march. I think maybe what we were being told was to build higher and stronger levees if we are going to have people live below sea level.
***** http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/29/news/la-pn-bachmann-hurricane-god-20110829

(http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/

07/family-leader-under-fire-over-slavery-comment-in-marriage-defense-pledge/).

Note: Bachmann got her law degree at Pat Robertson University.
****** http://www.e-wisdom.com/news/insurance/more-than-a-quarter-of-texans-do-not-have-health-insurance-110230036/