Abbey-Roads2

I read a piece on how a homeless man, a paraplegic no less, was released from the hospital and dumped on skid row in downtown Los Angeles.  He was crawling on the street in his hospital gown - no wheel chair or walker.  It happens more often than people realize.  The hospital discharges a non-pay patient, ready or not, and they better have someplace to go.

Hospital utilization review boards have to allocate beds to patients - and when they are insured, their stay at hospital better not be too long.  A woman who works for me is going in to have fibroid tumors removed - it’s kind of major surgery - and she will be released the same day.  It’s an insurance company thing - don’t use up their dollars.  (Of course the insurance companies are trying to save the insuring employer money - as well as increasing profits for their shareholders.) 

Non-pay patients take away from pay patients, which suggests to me, the hospitals and medical profession are beholden to the insurance company, and it is all pretty much for profit.  Market economy rules the world.

Alleged Homeless Dumping 

Even on Skid Row, it was shocking: a paraplegic man in a soiled gown sliding along the sidewalk with his hands, clutching a plastic bag with his belongings between his teeth.

Witnesses claim to have seen a hospital van drop off a homeless paraplegic man here on Skid Row, leaving him crawling in the street with nothing more than a soiled gown and a broken colostomy bag. Police traced the van to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center.

Police said the man, who was dragging a broken colostomy bag behind him, was dumped on the sidewalk Thursday in one of the worst parts of the city by the driver of a hospital van. The area is the same location where city officials say hospitals have dumped the homeless before.Witnesses, all homeless people, began shouting, “Where is his wheelchair? Where is his walker?” Detective Russ Long said Friday. They told officers the driver responded that the man defecated in the van and had to be removed.  - AOL News 

The van driver was seen refreshing her make-up before she left the scene.  In L.A. you always have to look your best.  What the hell is going on in our world?

We need more saints, like St. Francis,  to take care of our poor, and we have to do what we can as well - we have to do something.  It’s a scandal.

I’ve posted about this before - that the world is at war but we don’t really know it, or pay much attention.  Israeli spy chief, Efraim Halevy says WWIII has already started, an Israeli ought to know.  (He is not the first person to say this however.) 

‘We are in the midst of a third World War,’ former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy told weekly newspaper Expresso.

‘The world does not understand. A person walks through the streets of Tel Aviv, Barcelona or Buenos Aires and doesn’t get the sense that there is a war going on,’ said Halevy who headed Mossad between 1998 and 2003.

‘During World War I and II the entire world felt there was a war. Today no one is conscious of it. From time to time there is a terrorist attack in Madrid, London and New York and then everything stays the same.’  Israel News

Afterward, “everything stays the same”.  We have to watch “Grey’s Anatomy”, or “American Idol”, keep up with entertainment news, and get going on our winter vacations, get to the casinos, keep up with fashion, build our big houses, buy our big cars - the list just goes on.  It’s all pretty stressfull, but we’ve got our anti-depressants to get us through it all.  

Call me crazy, but I’m convinced we have become a sedated society.  If not, it seems to me a majority of people have some sort of dissociative disorder.

Anna Nicole Smith

I learned about her sudden death an hour after her body had been found.  I couldn’t help but wonder at how her life followed a similar pattern as others like her.

I remember the death of Marilyn Monroe…yep, and Jayne Mansfield, and Sharon Tate.  Now this woman joins their ranks.

Anna Nicole often remided me of one of Warhol’s superstars from The Factory.  Smith’s fame was bigger however.

Looking for a photo to use, I discovered she mostly did Playboy type stuff.  She essentially had no talent, although she married rich.

Her son died tragically not too long ago.  Those closest to her said she never got over it.  She was quoted as saying she hoped he was in purgatory now.

Sex, drugs, Music Awards - it’s so classic to our times.  With the court battles over money, big money, she attained fame for doing nothing. 

Reports are, today’s youth just want to be rich and famous - these are their goals in life.  Young bloggers are mourning this woman’s death, expressing love and sympathy.

I feel sad for her as well.  A tragic end to a tragic life.

It’s a curious phenomenon.